Learning Web Development - January Report

February 11, 2022

End of 2021 I've decided to learn web development. I was always interested in programming for the world wide web, especially the creative part, which to me is the frontend. Developing something that is then used by by millions of people or at least x number of enthusiasts (Let's say x>10 ;)) is just fascinating to me.

Getting the resources

Around January 2022 I gathered all the resources I could find and made a simple plan. I've already used FreeCodeCamp (FCC) few years ago, where I completed the HTML part. But this time I didn't want to strictly stick to the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, so I made my own plan and tracked my progress on GitHub.

HTML + CSS + JS + Procrastination

January was all about HTML, CSS, JavaScript and lots of procrastination. I've really overestimated my will to learn everyday for at least 5 hours, while keeping a day job, that has nothing to do with web development. It was just not possible.

So I tried to commit at least 15-30 Minutes a day to solve the FCC Challenges. I finished the HTML part in 7 days and the CSS part in just 2 days.

The JavaScript part was a little bit challenging. Unlike HTML or CSS, I've never written a simple JS program. But the syntax was not really new to me. I've written simple Java and C++ program before, so some of the concepts and syntaxes already looked familiar to me. Therefore I could complete the JS part in 9 days.

Let's go to YouTube

In the middle of January I was already familiar with HTML, CSS and JS. Now instead of just continuing the FreeCodeCamp part, I tried to work through some tutorials on YouTube. This was also a great opportunity to learn about the development tools on my Linux computer, such as VS Code.

I've downloaded Visual Code for the first time (which is an awesome piece of software) and worked through Traversy Media's HTML-CSS-JS Tutorial

As of writing this article, I didn't continue the tutorial, nor did I focus on the FreeCodeCamp curriculum. But this was expected. Not everyone can sit down and learn something consistently without missing 1 or 2 weeks and that is ok!

Now for February 2022 I plan to finish the above mentioned YouTube tutorial and go back to the basics on FreeCodeCamp. I definitely want to get deeper into CSS and JavaScript and create my first own small project.