Learning to Code, Dive in Already

Getting into coding is a super daunting task for people. Deciding what language to choose to use or trying to figure out how to approach a project can lead to people not getting started at all. Getting started is half the battle. Yes, you have to spend time learning new material but the great thing about coding is that the concepts are applicable across languages, even if things like syntax, spacing, etc. are different.

Once you get the gist of how the stack works together, building things is just plain fun. Well, that's not exactly always true but if you can get pas the occasional 'tear out your hair because I forgot a semi-colon phase', it's really fun. You don't have to be an expert to make things that get you excited and motivated to keep learning. It literally took me 4 attempts of the same Flask tutorial for me to finally get through it. It's mainly because I had this vision for a massive app that had all the bells and whistles and when I struggled with something as simple as logins, it made me stop.

I think this quote is true for almost any skill, both technical and non-technical. The first step to becoming proficient at something is sucking at it until you get better. For a while I had been interested in building apps by utilizing data from API's. I scoured the web for tutorials and had trouble getting the hang of it. On one particular tutorial, something finally clicked. I was able to get some data to display. It looked like shit and I could only get a few pieces of JSON to display, but I was ecstatic. Those little wins are what keep you going and making things that you want.

Once you have a basic understanding of the language that you want to learn, you'll be hooked. It's the next step on a long journey to making things that people love and can have fun with.