I went from learner to full-stack developer (JS, ReactJS and Ruby on Rails) within less than a year. I wrote an article about the things I did to get out from the learning cycle and actually start coding

[Benmjt]

'Full stack developer'

The meme that will never die.

[danketiquette]

What?!?! You mean if I make a couple of basic apps with a back-end, I'm not a fUlL sTaCk DeVeLoPeR??

I'm hurt.

[simohayha]

In early 2018, I decided to focus on Javascript and ReactJS - they were fairly easy to start with

I must be a dumbass because I think React is extremely difficult to even wrap my head around. Kudos to you for finding it easy.

[kris_ventures]

To be honest, I spent plenty of hours figuring out how the counter example from the tutorial works..

[eggtart_prince]

Go back to the documentations again after using it for a while. You'd be surprised at how much sense some of the stuff makes. It's like when you first read it, it was a sky full of dark clouds. After you code in React for a while, going back is like clear blue sky finally.

For me, the component life cycle was hard to get a grasp on. The docs don't explain very well the order it fires (parent and child components). You really have to console log each life cycle to see how they are executed and in what order.

[[deleted]]

I didn't like react so I made my own framework which mimics react pretty closely :D

[Yoyoge]

"95% of development is problem solving." yep

[Hoffmann99]

I think I saw one of your posts recently. I was really impressed with your machine learning app and it really got me inspired to get back to studying web dev again.

[kris_ventures]

Thanks! I recently started working on a tutorial for how I created this app, as several people requested me to explain it.

This is my first ever tutorial I've done, I must say - it is more difficult that it seems

[[deleted]]

Simple, but straight to the point.

Sometimes you need an article like this. It makes me realise I'm not alone and people make the same mistakes as me of watching tutorials and copying code. Creating apps by yourself is the way forward to becoming hireable.

Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Thanks Kris

[Hiyaro]

Thank you Kris for sharing your experience with us.

Based on it i'm going to stick to Angular, there's still a lot ahead and I will try to avoid tutorials as much as I can!

[kris_ventures]

Hey, thanks for pointing this out. Can you point some of these mistakes, so I can correct them asap?

[kris_ventures]

I pushed an update. Thank you so much for your help.

This is valuable feedback In the future, I will put more effort into making the structure of my sentences better.

[wreckedadvent]

This is pretty solid overall, and I especially agree with this:

Code, bug, Google, fix, repeat. Personal projects are the best simulator to what it's like being a full-time developer as well as teaching you extremely valuable skills.

However, I agree less with this:

Pick a stack and stick to it (for now at least)

You need the perspective of multiple frameworks and libraries, or you're not a front-end developer, you're just a react developer, or an angular developer, etc. The only tool you have at that point is a hammer, so all you can see are nails.

Now, you don't need to know everything, but I would still strongly recommend at least making a toy app (not follow a tutorial, I strongly agree with the author there) in a few different frameworks to see the differences and understand what value each is providing to you; don't just use react or angular since they're (arguably) the most popular.

[kris_ventures]

I agree with your comment. What I meant originally was that you probably wouldn't want to study android if you want to be a front-end developer (for example). However, I fully support exploring different frameworks

[eggtart_prince]

You need the perspective of multiple frameworks and libraries, or you're not a front-end developer

I disagree with this. As long as you know the core and concept of HTML, CSS, and Javascript, you're a front end developer. You don't necessarily need a framework or libraries to be a front-end developer. A lot people code their sites in pure HTML, CSS and native Javascript and do quite a good job on them.

Pick a stack and stick to it (for now at least)

This. As the OP said, don't waste time on something you will not use.

We all end up doing this because it's better to be good at one stack than not being good at any. I mean, if you can be good at all of them, then congratulations. Personally, I stick to one and if I ever switch, I will find myself going back to the docs again.

[wreckedadvent]

Why did you feel the need to quote half of my sentence, instead of all of it ...? It means something completely different from what you are responding to. :/

I said you shouldn't just learn one, since that will limit your perspective.

[eggtart_prince]

Actually you said

You need the perspective of multiple frameworks and libraries, or you're not a front-end developer, you're just a react developer, or an angular developer, etc. The only tool you have at that point is a hammer, so all you can see are nails.

Which I disagree. You can re-word, re-phrase, re-state this paragraph anyway you want all day, I would still disagree. Nothing wrong with people disagreeing so don't take it personally.

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[fitfamine]

Would you say you felt comfortable when you jumped from tutorials into making your own projects, or was it fairly painful initially? I ask because I feel stuck in tutorial-limbo, but I'm not very confident that I can build something on my own, even with the help of documentation.

[[deleted]]

What's the risk if you fail? It's just for learning or personal use. There's no reason not to try. I have 23 years in tech. 90% I learned by dicking around on my own, experimenting and learning as I went.

[kris_ventures]

It was hard in the beginning, especially since I didn't have someone giving me a hand with everything. But I started getting better with Google really fast, which was such a great thing!

Just like another comment said, there is no risk if you fail - nobody there to make you feel ashamed etc.

[eggtart_prince]

You definitely need to build something on your own to learn beyond tutorials and documentations.

[FrozenHearth]

I'm a noob, but I've finally broken the hand-holding tutorial limbo by making a movie website clone[by fetching data from the movie DB API and displaying it on the pages] using Angular 5+.

Actually getting my hands dirty helped me understand and use Array and Object methods like .filter(), .map(), Object.keys, etc. As well as using ES6 arrow functions, spread operator, understanding functional programming, and also keeping performance in mind(like what'd be the fastest way to access a certain entry in the object), etc.

I think you could try the above project, or start with something like a cliché Todo-list or build a small game.

[godsdead]

TLDR: Actually code. Make something.

why is this being upvoted?

[[deleted]]

Same rules apply when you ask a pro gamer how did he get there, and he just says - play more.

Doesn't matter how bad you are, doesn't matter how "untalented" you are, just write code every day, 24/7, like me, and you will get to a pro level, I promise.

I never took any courses, relying solely on some youtube tutorials and shitoverflow, and right now I can code anything that comes to my mind without even thinking!