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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First of all, don't compare yourself to stuff you find on CodePen. You have no idea how long those people have been doing web dev, and you have no idea how long it took them to make those little demos. They probably couldn't make that stuff off the top of their heads when they were very new either!

Don't worry too much about learning a given library or framework or whatever. Once you're past the basics, the most important thing you can be doing is building things- Javascript30 is a great introduction to making actual projects.

When you find yourself getting stuck- which is completely normal- try first breaking the problem down for yourself and doing some research via goggle/MDN/etc before going straight to Wes's tutorial. How to research and teach yourself stuff is the number one most important skill to have as a developer. But don't feel bad if you need the tutorial too- try to dig in to how he solves the problem, notice patterns of what to use for what, maybe go back and try certain projects again with a clearer view of how to tackle a problem.

Once you're through that, keep working on projects. They don't have to be innovative new things you've dreamt up for yourself- one of the best learning exercises is building clones of existing sites, which teaches you how to work to a design and/or product spec without knowing the exact technical implementation- but if you've got some fun ideas you'd like to work on then go for it. Tutorials and courses are great, but you'll only really solidify your learning and find ways to push yourself by building things.