My Coding Journey, So Far
Before I share my journey, I just want to say that this isn't a story of a "10x Dev"... No, I'm just an average guy with average skills who discovered that I actually love building code stuffs.I prefer to write naturally and I do not proofread most of my writings, that being said, there WILL be a lot of errors here, or cringeworthy statements. Let's just say this is a record of my thoughts at the moment.
I've never had any experience related to coding prior to 2019, which is the start of my work as a Content Editor for Reed Elsevier. I've never even written a simple "hello world" in HTML. Nothing.
My first encounter with "coding" is with XML. It was part of the training of a content editor since most of the documents that need editing is written in an XML document. I can't exactly remember how it went that day. We were introduced to the basic elements like paragraph tags and some EDEN-specific elements. We learned that tags go in pairs. You create an opening tag and then you close it, everything in between is either content or nesting. And that's the main concept of it.
What's important about that is I finally had an introduction to coding.
The next thing I remember on this journey is me trying to start a blog page using Blogspot. I didn't really want to create a "blog", but just a storage of texts that I can read online from anywhere I am, using any PC, without logging in to access those documents. Those were the days I wanted to hoard hundreds of articles. I've manually saved a copy of my favorite articles on different topics, like history, psychology, philosophy, and many more. And I wanted to hoard them in case those original websites or sources get shut down or something like that. So that's how I used Blogger back then.
And then I learned that its formatting is similar to XML, and that's when I got introduced to HTML. Now HTML makes much more sense than XML, because I haven't really used XML outside the company's "text editor". There was no other use case to practice or to learn more. What we were taught was enough to do the work that we have to do.
But for HTML, now this has some practical use. I researched about it online and studied the basics of it and how to use. I applied what I learned on that blog and also created some actual HTML pages. Just kept on using it while unintentionally getting better at it to the point that I memorized the different elements and their purposes and no longer have to use a cheatsheet. I then read more about it to improve my knowledge. And then it just clicked. It's pretty basic but very important.
And of course while doing those side projects, I was also introduced to CSS and JavaScript. At first I don't understand CSS and have to use cheatsheets a lot but then after using it so many times, the most common properties and creating my own classes and selectors.
Now as for JavaScript, I wasn't able to write my own scripts at all for a year or two. Whenever I try reading a book or guides about it, I just quit before I can go any further than, say, Chapter 2 or 3. Every time I try though, I get further and further.
Despite all that, I was able to create several projects even for work. I even shared them to my colleagues and they were able to use them and be more efficient with their tasks. You might ask how did I build stuffs? My answer to that is just Google and StackOverflow. Oh yes that, I discovered StackOverflow.
It was a haven for beginners.. or was it really? I've asked a lot of questions there and some were pretty kind and some not. I later found out that it's almost a meme how toxic the community can be especially to beginners. Now I don't hate them. I understand why they are like that. I have my own share of that experience being downvoted to heck and my post being closed for a "duplicate" or for just asking a question I don't know how to approach. It was demoralizing at first to even ask again. But there were times when I really couldn't solve a problem or bug I'm encountering for my side projects and I know no one personally who knows how to code, so I have to turn to them again for my questions. But I learned how to ask smartly and overtime my questions are no longer being downvoted and all that. I made sure my questions somehow makes sense and not a duplicate. I understood their game.
So yes, that was the cycle of it for two or more years? I can't really remember dates correctly. But yes, I just created projects after projects and that's how I really learned. I haven't read any books or official guides, I get bored easily with learning concepts I don't know how to use yet. I know that's not a great mindset, but that's just how my mind works at the time. I learned by building and by doing. To get a good grasp of what JavaScript can do or what I can implement for my projects. I search for scripts online and try them out. Then if I need a specific script, I will try to find something like it and reverse engineer it so that I can reuse it. I just can't wrap my head around JS. There was no clear pattern to it, and it was overwhelming. But that's just programming.
But little by little, I'm starting to understand JS to the point that it finally clicked, maybe after three years of HTML and CSS, and just reverse engineering existing scripts and projects?
So yeah, once I got it, I started reading some guides and actually sticking to them to understand it further more. I also read the book Eloquent JavaScript, which was a decent book, although I haven't finished it. Now I can finally write and understand JS.
But that's not meant to say I am a master of it. I've barely scratched the surface. From time to time, I still forget the basics of it after months of not coding.
Then after building several projects, I was promoted to Automation Developer.
Then now I'm a Web Developer, which I enjoy doing much more.
I'm quite tired typing all this so I'm going to stop here now. Maybe I'll continue in another time when I have something more to tell.
So after all this time, I feel like I'm still at 20% progress of this coding journey. I'm still going to face a lot more bosses and do more side quests...