Go over what you’ve written once it works and see if you can improve it. When you’re coding, experiment and break the code examples: what happens if you pass a string in instead of a number to that method? Become familiar with error messages and don’t be scared of broken code! Write better code Avoid mindlessly copying-and-pasting: at least understand what the code is doing before hitting Control+V. You will have to Google everything you do at this point, but that’s OK! We devs spend a lot of our time on StackOverflow. And so on.ĭon’t forget to put your project on GitHub! You can learn about source control AND have a public record of your skills as a developer. Change the button event to change the text on the screen to ‘Goodbye World’.Attach an event to the button, so that when you click it, it logs a message to the console.Add a button to the page that says ‘Click me!’.Create an HTML page that says ‘Hello World’ and display it in your browser.A multiple choice quiz is another old faithful, like in this excellent tutorial.īut once you’ve got an idea of what you want to achieve, don’t get trapped in a cycle of reading endless tutorials or textbooks or watching videos, remember to write some code! When you’re following an example, start up the dev console in the browser or open a new file and try the code out yourself so you ensure you’re actively learning what you’re reading about.ĭon’t know where to start? Break the task down into tiny steps, for example: What’s a simple app? The trusty To-Do List app is dull but great practice for standard tasks like creating, deleting and editing data and interacting with the DOM. Think of a simple app and start googling: adding search terms like ‘example’, ‘how to’ or ‘tutorial’ can lead you in the right direction. It’s scary leaving the comfort blanket of guided tutorials and earning badges each time you write a function, but you have to take the plunge eventually. (If you want that, check out this fantastic book.) Instead it’s some high-level guidance and words of encouragement. This isn’t a list of tutorials or a syllabus of concepts that you should know. ![]() Here’s some of the points I mentioned in my talk. They’ve got basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript syntax, so what are some good things to start building or learning next? I know how daunting it can be to be faced with a blank editor at that stage, so in my talk I gave some common-sense advice that I would have appreciated when I was in that position myself. Last month, I gave a lightning talk called “Coding After Codecademy” which was inspired by people asking me how to improve their newly acquired web development skills, now they’ve completed some Codecademy/Udacity/Code School courses.
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