So you've made a coding project... now what!?

Let's go!!

Now for my next trick. Hopefully you've managed to get through all the steps, make your first project from scratch, with minimal understanding about programming and can see the potential. You've already done so much better than what I did when I first started! As I've explained I wasted months looking at endless content about all the complexities about programming without writing a simple line of code, I don't recommend this. My aim in this blog is for you to try programming and start making stuff as soon as you can!

Other myths you really don't need to worry about at this stage:
What programming language to learn?
How long does it take until you are job ready?
When am I ready for a bootcamp?
Should I go to uni?
Should I buy courses or books? If yes to either, which ones?

Put these nagging questions to the side.

If you've tried to find content about the basics to get job ready with coding, you'll have some trouble. I know this because I've done it for you, it's really not easy. The question I asked myself is, "What is something small, that I can put to use!?"... Yep, nothing!! The learning platforms and courses don't talk about how to set up your workflow practices to start a project. This a huge problem!!

After a while of going back and forth between courses and not understanding them and giving up. I struggled to find a single little program that made sense to me. Let alone be something useful, or a widget, a script, a gui. Nope!! I'm obviously asking way too much here...

At this point, I was at a loss. I bought books. Big books. I read the software developers guide by Sean Sonmez, cracking the coding interview, countless articles and blogs and the overflowing content of Youtubers trying to explain the best path to take... I couldn't find anything that linked the wide stretched chasm inbetween where I was and where I wanted to be.

Let's look at what's next.

If you're still with me, great!
Simple. Buy LPTHW. You won't be sorry, and no, the author of this book doesn't even know I'm plugging his content, and no, I don't get any money from saying this. It's $30 and it's worth it. Click here and get it.

"Learn Python The Hard Way" by Zedd Shaw. He sounds like a super hero doesn't he!? To me, he kinda is. His book is concise, clear and gets straight down to business. It's truely no-nonsense. Does he make you write out strings and functions just like the other online content!? Yes, BUT!!! - This "BUT" is a very important - He also makes projects at every step of the way!! This is where the online stuff fails you! As you're learning something new, he immediately creates context for each project. At last!! We have context!! He finally addresses the problem of learning about something, and then applying it to a real-life situation. Think about this for a minute.
You don't learn English by memorising the dictionary. You learn simple words put together; small sentences that are useful to you. "How much? Where is the toilet? Can I have a kiss?". Context. Zedd guides you through small projects and gets you comfortable creating new projects, taking things slow, and making sure you know why you need to learn concepts like OOP and modules and classes. Another important component is comments. He gets you to write comments, explaining the code you just wrote. This is important. It forces you to put into words what you have just learned, it also makes sure, when you forget how to use something - which you will - you've made your own personalised text book that is in your words so hopefully, you should be able to understand it. By the end of LPTHW, you create a web app in Python that you can use, bragging to all of your friends. Yes!!! That's what I'm talking about!!

Ok, so let's fast forward a bit. What happens next!?

Make hundreds of projects! Yep hundreds! Every time you follow a tutorial on YouTube, make the project like they did it. Then, personalise it, put your face on it, design it the way you want it to look, add more features than the YouTuber did. I'm sure you have an idea that differed from the youTuber who presented it. Do it! It's at this point you are truely practicing and learning new things, just like the pros do.. so they tell me.

If there is something specific that you want to make, I'll point to what tech you need to search on YouTube:
Android app: kivy library with Python
Web app: python and flask app (or Django)
Static website / blog: html and CSS (optional: javascript)

If this doesn't make sense to you, google it first and poke around, if you're still having troubles, email me and I'll do my best to help you out.

Eventually, you'll want to think about how to deploy a website or app to a server so everyone can see it. Android app: Google Dev account
Web app: Heroku
Static website: Netlify

Luke Robertson

My projects aim to help others learn more about programming. It's also here to remind me what I've done so far, and to plan my next project. There is so much content out there in the coding world, it super easy to get distracted, sifting through all the ads, and surface level band-aid fixes. This website is an effort to keep me honest, helping me stay on track, whilst helping as many people learn more about programming; and one day, land my dream job working as a developer.

I'm learning more about:

Python

Web Design

Powershell