So it’s been one year (and a couple of days) since I started this blog documenting my journey to learn to code. Based on how much I know now compared to a year ago, it feels like I’ve been coding forever.
One year ago, I
- didn’t know the difference between Java and JavaScript
- could just about edit some HTML and CSS to make a basic web page
- thought the Tower of Hanoi were a tourist attraction (ok, not really)
- had gone through a few Code School and Treehouse videos on Rails but not understood them at all
- never heard of version control
- had just quit my job to attend a coding bootcamp
And now, I
- have graduated from a coding bootcamp
- am nearly half way through a Computer Science degree at UBC
- have an e-portfolio of projects from the said bootcamp and a hackathon I’ve participated in
- can hack out code in Ruby, Java, JavaScript, and C++ (in decreasing order of fluency)
- have solved the Tower of Hanoi
- can code sorting algorithms and solve a few dynamic programming problems
- have landed an internship at an amazing Vancouver startup for this fall (more on that soon)
- am writing this after a marathon weekend of coding a web app for school which parses publicly available datasets and visualises them on Google Maps using Google Web Toolkit and Java
Crazy, huh? If there’s one thing I would say to people who are thinking about learning to code or are just getting started, there is no time like the present. There are jobs and opportunities coming left, right and centre and the industry is thriving. Companies like WhatsApp are getting bought out for $19B, while others like Snapchat are refusing buyout offers of $3B. Again, I say things are crazy.
And the wealth of resources available to those who want to learn is greater than ever before. You’ve got resources like Stack Overflow and Coursera, Treehouse, CodeAcademy and what have you.I honestly believe that with the right amount of determination and willingness (to bombard forums with questions mostly), anyone can learn enough to begin cracking out some decent apps.
I’m not saying I (or you) will have it all figured out in a year’s time, I mean, there’s plenty of things I still don’t understand and find difficult, but still. You could be creating an MVP for your startup in a half a year or a year. Want to do it quicker, a hacker school is definitely worth a look. One of the ones that has caught my eye recently is App Academy where you only pay for the course if you land a job (you pay a percentage of your first year’s salary).
Looking ahead, I’m definitely moving in the right direction. I’ve got lots to say about the internship I’m going to start in September. It at an extremely exciting company and I couldn’t have hoped for a better place to get some industry experience, meet some new people and learn a lot. While pre-coding me is very different from me now, I’d be a fool to say that there have been things I could/should have done differently. That’s probably my main motivation for writing this blog – to learn from how I can do/learn things better – and also to share those thoughts with you, no matter what stage of the coding journey you’re at. Also, I like to talk.
I Learn to Code 