Hey thanks so much for this, and hello fellow Portlander! I understand the difficulty in trying to push through studying. Programming and development is hard! Particularly when you’re first getting started and trying to wrap your brain around difficult concepts. If I can offer a little advice, trying to force yourself into comprehension will hinder more than it helps, and at worst will reinforce a negative feeling when you’re working/learning.
I’ve found the best approach to be follow whatever you find interesting. There’s definitely a centerline to stick to, yes, especially early on (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the intricacies within them), and you need those fundamentals first. But whenever you discover something that makes you go, “Wait, how does that work?”, or “That’s cool!”, investigate further. Even if you don’t understand how something works, pursuing something you’re naturally stimulated in will help you overall in the whole development process. Try to keep a good balance of the things you need to know versus the stuff you want to know, and then practice.
That said, don’t feel guilty if you’re not knocking it out of the park everyday. The point is the repetition becoming natural. And this is especially easier to manage if you’re building things. I saw on your CodePen that you’ve been working on small projects. That’s awesome. Keep that up. And one thing to remember is you don’t have to just move on once something is “done”—no project is really ever done, the dev just gave up working on it. There’s always more to add and refine, from programming logic to documentation to picking the right color scheme, etc.
I’m glad you found something helpful with what I wrote/made! Let me know if you need any tips or help along your way!
Hey thanks so much for this, and hello fellow Portlander! I understand the difficulty in trying to push through studying. Programming and development is hard! Particularly when you’re first getting started and trying to wrap your brain around difficult concepts. If I can offer a little advice, trying to force yourself into comprehension will hinder more than it helps, and at worst will reinforce a negative feeling when you’re working/learning.
I’ve found the best approach to be follow whatever you find interesting. There’s definitely a centerline to stick to, yes, especially early on (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the intricacies within them), and you need those fundamentals first. But whenever you discover something that makes you go, “Wait, how does that work?”, or “That’s cool!”, investigate further. Even if you don’t understand how something works, pursuing something you’re naturally stimulated in will help you overall in the whole development process. Try to keep a good balance of the things you need to know versus the stuff you want to know, and then practice.
That said, don’t feel guilty if you’re not knocking it out of the park everyday. The point is the repetition becoming natural. And this is especially easier to manage if you’re building things. I saw on your CodePen that you’ve been working on small projects. That’s awesome. Keep that up. And one thing to remember is you don’t have to just move on once something is “done”—no project is really ever done, the dev just gave up working on it. There’s always more to add and refine, from programming logic to documentation to picking the right color scheme, etc.
I’m glad you found something helpful with what I wrote/made! Let me know if you need any tips or help along your way!
Thanks for some real world advice.
Truly appreciated!