Code Newbie (Frontend Programming)
Want to learn how to code???
Coding from scratch? Bruh… what even is code?
To clear things off, I’m going to be using layman’s English to advise you. I’ll break down every single technical term into words that you can easily understand because my main goal of writing this article is to help you understand the basics of learning how to code as a newbie.
I started coding in January 2019. I just came to college from Nigeria and my academic advisor registered me for a Web Development class because I told her I wanted to learn more about tech. I was very nervous about taking this class because I had never written a single line of code in my life. In one month, my mindset changed. I moved from being nervous about coding, to wanting to create a replica of Apple’s website (that’s my favorite website btw :) ). That was the beginning of my coding journey and that was what led me to my passion for Product Design.
Coding is simply creating. When you were a child, you probably created projects for “show and tell” or a science fair. You created those projects to show to your teachers and your class, I’m sure your parents were very impressed with your work! That’s exactly what coding is! It is building things (websites, apps) that people would find useful, the people that you’re building for in this case are your users, or “target audience”. Your code is useful to them because it solves a problem, or helps them achieve a task. Whether or not you have a coding background, if you’re thinking about learning to code — I’m proud of you and I’m here to help you get started!
When you were a child, you probably created projects for “show and tell” or a science fair. You created those projects to show to your teachers and your class, I’m sure your parents were very impressed with your work! That’s exactly what coding is! It is building things (websites, apps) that people would find useful, the people that you’re building for in this case are your users, or “target audience”.
You want to learn how to code! Now what? The first thing to do is is figure what exactly you want to build because there are different programming languages and they all serve different purposes. Programming languages are languages that allow us to give instructions to computers to execute commands that result in the desired output. I’m a front-end programmer, so I usually use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build websites, and I use ReactNative (a framework used for building mobile apps) to build mobile apps for cross platforms(Ios and Android). If you want to gain coding skills that would enable you to build frontend platforms like websites and mobile apps, then the resources I’ll provide would be right for you!
Web Development
Web Development is simply designing and building websites and web apps. The skills required for this are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There are several other frameworks that can be used for building websites, but these are the core languages you’d need to learn to start off. I’m sure you’re wondering what each of these languages does? HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is a language used to design the layout of the web page/web site you’re building. When you think of HTML think about laying a foundation for a building. So you can see HTML as the building block for a web site. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and it is the styling language used for the web. It specifies the style, layouts, colors, and fonts that are used for designing web pages. You can call HTML and CSS cousins that are better off side by side cause they are unstoppable together. JavaScript is the language that brings your website to life. It is responsible for the interactivity and responsiveness of your websites. HTML is for the structure, CSS is for the style/design, and JavaScript is for the responsiveness/interactivity. The order in which you should learn web dev is HTML first, then some CSS, then JavaScript, and any other frameworks that interest you! A framework is a software platform/tool that allows developers to build programs easily by reducing the amount of work they have to do.
Mobile App Development
Mobile App Development is simply designing and developing mobile apps. Mobile dev and Web dev are quite similar because they use similar structures. Knowing the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript would help you understand mobile development better. ReactNative is a framework developed by Facebook to enable developers to build mobile apps for cross platforms (Ios and Android.) Learning ReactNative would help you fulfill your dreams of becoming a mobile app developer!
Resources
Now that you know what each language does, you may have an idea of what you want to learn. The next thing to figure out is where to learn them? There are many online resources to help you learn but I’m going to suggest my personal recommendations that have helped me so far and they’re free!
- freeCodeCamp: This is my absolute fave! With freeCodeCamp, you can learn the basics of HTML, CSS, Responsive Design, and Visual Design in less than 2 weeks! You’d also be able to work on web design projects that you can add to your resume or portfolio, and show it to employers.
- W3Schools: This is one of the greatest blessings to web developers. W3Schools is a bank of tutorials and resources that would provide you with literally everything you’ll need to know about web design and development. It breaks down everything into simple concepts so it’ll be easy for you to understand. It can also be used as a reference throughout your code journey because even the most experienced professionals still look up how to do certain things they forget.
- Code Academy: This is also great! It’s a really great tool for beginners. It’s similar to freeCodeCamp.
- Youtube: Youtube is literally the answer to any question. As you begin to code and face difficulties, Youtube would be very helpful! But you’d have to be careful with this because people can post anything which might confuse you. Fin good programming channels and try to stick to them.
- Medium: Yes, Medium! Now that you want to begin to code, it’s good to familiarize yourself with the discipline by reading articles about it. There are also articles on Medium that provide learning resources, so you can check them out!
Now that you know about frontend programming and you know where you can learn the coding skills, I’d be looking out for your cool projects! Maybe you’d be able to create a website like this.
Along the line, things may get difficult, but don’t give up. Remember practice makes perfect. Be patient with yourself and make sure you learn the basics so that as you begin to explore, you’d be grounded in your roots.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more articles!
