Learning Frontend is difficult. This field is growing rapidly, and it’s easy to get lost in the dozens of frameworks, libraries, and tools. To grow as a front-end developer, you must strip away the unnecessary stuff and focus on what matters.
You know your goal: to become the best front-end developer. To achieve this, you need to make a plan. If you look at jobs, will see a list of 10-20 requirements that you need to know to call yourself a front-end developer.
But actually it is not.
You don’t have to know everything to get a job. Sometimes even experienced developers don’t know everything.
The web interface is built on three foundations:
That’s all. If you know them very well, that’s almost enough to get you a job. Almost because you usually also need to know one JavaScript framework.
Don’t learn Vue.js, React, Angular or anything else. Pick one and stick with it.
How to choose a framework to study? Find out what is in demand in the job market you are interested in. If there are many offers for junior Angular developers, learn Angular. If some other framework wins, choose that one. If you’re not sure, bet on React.
What about other technologies listed in the job requirements? You should read something about them, but in most cases they can be ignored.
Learning the basics of Git is important, but you can do it in a day or two. Stylized components? If you know JavaScript and CSS, you’ll pick it up quickly. Module assemblers? You will most likely be using starter packs for a long time in your career.
First, you need to learn things that will help you get a job. You can learn more and hone your skills when someone starts paying you to do it.
You know what to learn. Time to act.
The first step is to break down everything you need into manageable chunks of knowledge. Remember two basic rules:
It’s really easy to get started. Create a website using only HTML elements – no CSS. A simple page with one image. It’s important to become familiar with HTML and how it looks in the browser.
Take your time and don’t add any CSS or JavaScript. Compare how your site looks in different browsers. You’ll be surprised at the differences.
Later, start experimenting with CSS. Again, start very simply. Take Google’s home page for example – nothing special, nothing complicated. Create sites like this and get used to CSS. Then build on this foundation.
Start learning JavaScript only when you feel comfortable with CSS.
Always take only one step at a time. Ignore everything except the step you are about to take. Over time, try to create more and more complex websites.
Often people want to learn how to program, but they think they don’t have time to do it every day. They study all weekend every two weeks, but cannot squeeze study hours into weekdays.
This seems reasonable. If you can study on average 16 hours in two days, that’s like studying one hour a day for 16 days.
But this is not reasonable. It all depends on regularity.
Think about it. You can’t train once a week and become a professional athlete. So how could you study once every two weeks and become a software developer?
In the days between workouts, you will forget everything. Moreover, you cannot effectively study for many hours in a row. You’ll be too tired.
Learning to program for hours is easy. Learning to code every day is not an easy task.
To overcome everyday struggles, you need to approach them wisely. You must develop the habit of programming. Your goal is to transform learning from a chore into something you just do. Even if it’s only 15 minutes some days, do it. This will make it easier to form the habit.
It is more effective to study an hour a day than seven hours once a week. If you have more free time on the weekend, be sure to use it. But remember that regularity is more important than squeezing as many hours a day as possible.
Many people love to study theory. Computer science is fun, watching courses is relaxing, programming blogs are great.
But there is one problem.
You will not be able to achieve great success when you read or just watch how others do something. You can spend weeks with the best resources available and still not learn anything. Why? Because we learn by doing. Theoretical knowledge quickly evaporates if it is not applied in practice.
So what should you do?
Learn by doing. Ditch the theory and get straight to the point.
This may seem too simple, but it’s not. Getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn.
Build that website, build that app. It doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail. What is important is the struggle to find a solution.
Why is learning by doing so effective?
At first, you won’t know if you like learning a new skill. Until you start doing this, you can’t be sure. So don’t waste your time – start as soon as possible.
It doesn’t matter if the new skill is learning HTML or some fancy framework. You should try this to see if you want to do it. If learning brings you joy and you see progress, this is a sign that you are on the right track. If every new task feels like a struggle, it’s probably not something you want to do in the long run.
You can watch courses for hundreds of hours, but in the end you will have nothing to show that you have acquired new skills.
It’s more impressive for your future employer to have a portfolio of 25 websites than to say you watched 25 hours of videos and read a hundred articles.
Your mind is playing tricks on you. He will pretend that you are studying while you are just watching videos, cooking and texting at the same time. Procrastination is a sneaky beast.
You can beat procrastination by doing something. You often get distracted when watching videos about the latest programming language features. But to create an app, you have to be focused.
To stick to your habits, they must bring you satisfaction. This will help you in difficult times. And what could be better than doing something that you can show to others?
Learning is the art of failing. You will fail a lot. You will be disappointed. There will be days when you will feel like the dumbest person on earth who will never learn to code.
It’s very easy to have high expectations and be disappointed.
Focus on the process, not the results.
The results are beyond your control. You can plan to master JavaScript promises a week in advance, but you may fail. We are bad at predicting the future, our skills and the complexity of the subject. But it’s only a failure if you choose to measure your progress by results.
It’s better to concentrate on the process. This could be learning JavaScript for an hour a day. After a week, if you studied every day, you will succeed. Maybe you kept your promises. It may take a few more days. What matters is that you did what you wanted to do.
Success will come. You just have to trust the process.