Teaching yourself to learn programming? Start Here!

hey everybody what's going on I'm AndyI'm a self-taught software developer inthis video we're gonna talk about is ifyou are brand new to programming if youjust heard about getting into softwaredevelopment web development and you'retrying to figure out what you need youto start well this is the video you wantto watch I'm gonna go through and reallylay out a 3-month plan for you so thatway it's pretty clear what the nextsteps are and then you can figure outthe restor at least reevaluate after that so ifyou're new here and you're trying tofigure out who the heck am i who's thisguy that's talking well I'm Andy and I'ma full-stack developer and I'm also amentor to people who are looking to getinto this field so I help people learnthe skills that they need as well asfigure out how to land that first job soI highly recommend subscribing belowmake sure to also hit the bell icon toget notifications anytime I put out anew video so without any further adolet's just dive into it so who am italking to who is the ideal person whothis video is for so let's say you'vewatched a few of my videos and maybewatch some other of youtubers videos andthey were talking about how they taughthimself to be a programmer or softwaredeveloper web developer or maybe youjust you need a friend told you youcould do it and now you really youreally want to do it you don't exactlyknow where to start maybe you bought acourse maybe you are reading a book andyou're just like I'm not sure what thenext couple months should look like solet me break down what I think youshould do but also give you reasoningand principles behind how you're gonnado it so number one thing that you wantto do no matter what you what approachyou take is you've got to keep it simpleright simplicity is going to be thething that takes you the next part ofyour journey any sort of complexity isgoing to kill you like anything that'scomplex so let's say you're you'reyou're gonna learn Python if you'regoing to make your your roadmap verycomplex and have all these complexapplications you're gonna build the nextair B&B with that and you're gonna buildthe next Facebook with it you are youknow you're setting the expectationshigh which is fantastic I love it butyou've got to keep things as simple aspossible also included with this is ifyou're going to learn something likePython or it may be even JavaScriptthat's probably one of the most commonones right if you're going to buy everycourse on udemy or buy like four or fivebooks that you saw on Amazon that wasrecommended to you you're making thismore complex than it has to be yourcourse collecting which is really badbecause you're you're buying a bunch ofcourses thinking that'shelp you but you're adding complexity tothis so those are the the two things youwant to keep in mind took right off thebat the last thing I'd say is you wantto anything that you learn so anythingthat you learned with us HTML CSSJavaScript c-sharp Java you name theprogramming language you name whateveryou want you want to make sure thatyou're using projects or you buildingprojects along with going through yourlearning resources so if you're readinga book if you're going through yourDeming course you want to be buildingprojects on the side in your portfolioto give you to make sure that you'reusing those concepts that you'relearning but not only that it gives yousomething you can demonstrate to anemployer potentially that you know whatyou're doing so those are my basic keysnow here's what I recommend again ifyou're super brand new if you've alreadygot some experience under your belt ifyou know HTML and CSS you need a littlebit of JavaScript this probably doesn'tapply to you but if you just want asimple plan to keep - for the next threemonths here's what I recommend I highlyrecommend learning HTML CSS thenJavaScript make sure a long way youlearn get as well and just learn aboutclient-server architecture now this isthe basics of web development so you mayask yourself like whoa I actually wantto be a software developer I would be aprogrammer that's fantastic you don'thave to do this route my simplesuggestion and this is from people whoI've talked to people all the time aboutgetting into software development mostpeople don't know what they want mostpeople are interested in getting a jobas soon as they possibly can they wantto get into this career as soon aspossible they don't want to wait aroundthey don't want to wait you know fiveyears to learn learn every nook andcranny of programming then try to gostraight into back-end or straight intogame development or something like thatso if you're the type of person Irecommend just starting with the basicsof web development so HTML CSSJavaScript like I said get that's kindof universal amongst programming but andthen learn client-server architecture sothat's my basic recommendation you can -it does it it's not the right waythere's people who have have done it inmany different ways but after you gothrough that then you can maybe changeyour path after those three months oflearning those basics you can go in andchange now by the way my recommendationscome from learning or spending about 15hours per week studying so if you don'thave that much time maybe this is a fouror five or six month plan but if you canleast get 15 to 20 hours in this you canmake good progress now let's just gothrough each very quickly so HTML andCSS how long should you spend on it mygeneral recommendationis bare minimum I'd say one to two weeksmaximum about a month and I highlyrecommend a good learning resource isthe head first HTML and CSS book nowthat's a really nice way to learn itthat's how I learned HTML and CSS sothat's how I learned the bulk of thebasics because the head first seriesreally is good at teaching things in afun way more than anything else but italso gives you just what you need toknow and not everything it's not mostcomprehensive but you don't need to knoweverything you just need to know thebasics to move forward so myrecommendation is if you have neverheard of HTML CSS P the HTML and CSS ifyou've never touched itspend about a month learning it use thehead first HTML CSS book and then moveon okay so one or two weeks if you'rereally well-rounded in that area a monthif you really need work then the nextthing you want to spend is that at leastthe next two months learning JavaScriptand obviously the learning resource Iwould recommend as well is the headfirst JavaScript series I swear I don'tget paid by these guys but it's justit's what I use in a way what Irecommend to people and it seems toreally resonate but the head firstjavascript book in the same manner thatthe head first HTML book it's a reallygood learning resource it will teach youthe basics it's fun it's not gonna teachyou everything you don't have tomemorize stuff there has a lot of funactivities to do and so you want to workyour way through that now with both ofthese with both HTML CSS and JavaScripthere's the key you want to buildprojects as you're learning so with HTMLand CSS I would recommend building oneor two static websites as you'relearning so you want to basically youcould do something like build your ownpersonal website you could build awebsite for a friend maybe they havesome sort of business that they'd likean online presence for but just keep itsimple like don't try to rebuild youknow your favorite website like you knowdon't try to rebuild Google or like ESPNor this website I go to clearly lookwhatever cool website you go to on adaily basis that looks really cool youdon't have to build that just build asimple website for yourself or someoneelsethat's for HTML and CSS when you go toJavaScript though you want to probablycreate about two to four projects topaint on your skills and how quickly youcan progress they should be simpleremember simplicity is what I recommendin the beginning so you want to keepit's dead simple with this sotic-tac-toe game could be a reallysimple one right maybe a Frogger game orsome other sort of video game that youliked as a kid that you know would bevery simple to build also a simple webapp so you could build something like ato-do list that's a very common one acalculator of some sort like keep itsimple you don't have to build the nextAirbnb that's the one mistake I've seenso many people make they're like youknow I don't have any projects I canbuild because I haven't thought of agood business plan I haven't thought ofa good business idea it's like you'rejust trying to learn JavaScript man likeyou don't need to learn you'll have tobuild an actual application you justneed to start with something simpledon't undersell this idea like don'tdon't don't think that just by buildinga calculator app it's like all it'sthat's not good enough you're justworking on the basics you're trying tolearn the fundamentals the first threemonths you're not going to become asoftware developer a programmer mostmost likely so you just want to buildsomething simple to get your skillsunderneath you so HTML CSS andJavaScript those you know during thefirst three months you're gonna focusmostly on JavaScript you really get theproblem solving skills better tounderstand the some of the basics ofjust programming in general now I'd alsomentioned get in client-serverarchitecture now git is if you don'tknow about git I highly recommend doinga little research it's basically ifyou've never heard about before it's away to work on code or work on a projectwith other people wait so if I'm on acomputer here and you're on yourcomputer we can work on a project samecode collaboratively and it's a way tosave the state or the history of thatproject over time so you know how likewhen you're working a word document andyou you're like sitting there you don'twant to delete a paragraph because youmight want to use it later we'll getsort of plays that rule of allowing youto see what you had in the past in yourproject and maybe use that code later onyou can find more information about itbut you want to get comfortable with thegit command line using github postingprojects on github and the last partlearning about client-serverarchitecture that's just a basicparadigm of how the internet works howthe how websites work so you want tounderstand the basics of that so maybeyou need to understand more about HTTPtraffic networking in the internet sooverall that's my recommendation learnHTML CSS and JavaScript with the headfirst books learn good as well as wellas client-server architecture learn moreabout the Internet and in your firstthree months that's pretty good makesure you have projects to show for itdon't just go through the books andfigure that's enough once you'vecompleted those three monthsthen you are going to know more about awhether you even like this or not maybeyou don't even like it and then B you'llhave a better sense of things you'llhave more knowledge under your underyour feet around your in your tool beltor in your brain and then you can moveon and do something else potentially youcan either take in a different directionyou can continue learning webdevelopment maybe learn a JavaScriptframework if you haven't already but atthat time you can make that decision forthe first three months you just focus ondoing the work from there you can figureeverything else out alright guys andthat's really it so thank you so muchfor watching guys I hope you enjoyedthis video I hope it was helpful leave alike leave a comment if you have anyquestions I'll try my best to answerother than that if you haven't already Ihighly recommend joining my freeFacebook group I post a lot of contentthere that I don't post on YouTube Ialso have some live Q&A events from timeto time to help answer your questions sohighly recommend going and joiningthey're at an Easter quits com forwardslash group other than that guys thankyou so much for watching and as always[Music]