Tag Archives: codepen

A message for all grumpy developers

3 Steps To Becoming A Better Front End Developer

Do you also feel overwhelmed by the amount of frameworks, libraries and programing languages that you need to learn?

You see a job application for hiring a full-stack developer and don’t have the guts to apply because you feel you don’t know enough?

The truth is, there will be always somebody else who knows more about a specific topic then you.

Here are my 3 simple steps, that will help you on your journey to become a great front-end developer whether full-stack or super focused.

These 3 steps are the key to learning new things in a record time.

1. Start Somewhere Today

Whether you are just starting your career, or decided to refresh your knowledge and move your career forward again, the key is to start somewhere.

Too many people let the amount of new frameworks, courses and tools stop them from doing anything, stop them from becoming better developers.

They are paralyzed by the amount of choices and options.

Don’t make the same mistake and simply start somewhere TODAY.

Starting somewhere will help you:

  • to move forward
  • to stay focused on the journey not the destination
  • to get a momentum from learning new things

To start is the first and very important step, but you’ll get nowhere these days without learning new things.

2. Keep Learning

Ok, you got it and you’ve decided to start, now what do you start with?

I’ll be super honest here, it doesn’t really matter.

The secret is to learn ONLY ONE THING at a time.

But hey, I want to be a full-stack developer I need to learn everything right?

Yes, but learning too many things at once is essentially multitasking and can significantly increase the time required to master or become good at something.

Learning one thing at a time will help you:

  • to learn new things much easier
  • to learn anything much quicker
  • to learn much more about a specific subject, framework or library

Whatever it is that you want to learn at the moment (SVG, GreenSock, Skrollr, ScrollMagic), pick only one thing and start doing.

3. Keep Doing

Hunger for new informations, reading, listening and watching other developers code will definitely help you, but too many people never apply what they’ve learned into practice.

Doing is the best way to learn.

Whether it’s a simple CodePen demo or a static html file on your desktop, writing your code from scratch is the best way to learn.

Learning by doing will help you:

  • to make mistakes that will help you to become better at debugging
  • to get a deeper understanding of the subject
  • to become more independent

On a real world projects we spend a lot of time debugging and figuring things out.

No book, tutorial, screencast or course can teach you how to debug things, you need to get your hands dirty and learn by doing.

In my courses I intentionally keep the mistakes in and here’s what the students think:

I like how you include mistakes … it’s an extremely useful trick to learn and remember.

We all learn from mistakes and only by doing something, you will make them.

Conclusion

Your goal shouldn’t be to know everything, that’s impossible anyway.

Your goal should be to learn how to learn.

Your goal should be to know enough to make informed decisions and move your projects forward without any headaches.

I hope that these 3 simple steps will help you to become the best front end developer you can be.

And let me know in the comments what is your strategy for learning new things?

Until next time, happy coding.

Google Acquires CodePen

Google Acquires CodePen

Google has finally made the leap and acquired CodePen.

The acquisition rumors were circulating online for sometime, and today Google confirmed that they have closed the deal on it’s CodePen acquisition for an undisclosed sum.

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