
Ask HN: How do you learn Web Dev? - e_x
I am determined to switch my career from a customer service representative to web developer. I have no prior experience of computer science or programming. Please guide me.
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harrisreynolds
There are a couple approaches to take here. If you are set on becoming a web
developer you need to start writing code every single day.

HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Every. Single. Day.

Use John Maxwell's "Rule of Five":

[https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/the-rule-of-5-for-the-
john-...](https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/the-rule-of-5-for-the-john-maxwell-
company/)

Pick five things to improve related to HTML/CSS/JS every day, and make sure to
be consistent.

Another idea to get started learning about building applications is to start
building things with a #nocode platform.

Here is a survey of some of the top platforms:

[https://www.webase.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-no-code-
pl...](https://www.webase.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-no-code-platforms)

Also note that Webase itself is a no-code platform and is useful in learning
how to build data models etc.

Best of luck!

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matijash
Web development can be done on many levels (e.g. just frontend or backend or
styling/layout) with different technologies (libraries such as React,
frameworks such as Angular, ...).

So the first problem is to learn what to learn. When I was trying to teach my
gf to code (she is also non-engineer) it was actually pretty overwhelming for
me, because I needed first to give her a lot of what-is-what knowledge. E.g.
how internet roughly works, what is server, what is client, what is db, etc.

At the end I bought some Udemy full-stack web development course for ~ $9.99,
they are always on some kind of sale. That worked pretty well (although she
didn't get very far, I have to push her again :D), because they explained
everything from scratch so you can acquire that initial what-is-what
understanding.

So I would advise you to first acquire that general kind of knowledge,
understand the basic parts of web (development) and then dive into the
specific technologies - you will have much better context of what are you
doing and how it fits in the bigger picture.

I believe any course with a decent amount of stars/reviews would do well. Feel
free to ask more here.

Hope this helps!

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mtmail
This is the first result on Google for the same question. It's a good and vast
guide [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Learn](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn) Good luck.

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CallidaVorhis
Pending on what company you're working for you may be able to find a _younger_
software engineer to take you on as a mentor. I say younger because the
seniors that I have worked with have a ton of useful knowledge, but don't know
how to dumb it down to be digestible for a complete beginner and end up
completely overloading me with obfuscated words and acronyms. This is just my
experience though so don't let that stop you from reaching out to a senior
engineer.

This way you can set up an: Accountability system -- as good as having HN or
freecodecamp's Twitter beat you up for missing a day on the 100 day's of code
challenge there is nothing more efficient than having someone in person that
you can go to for help when you're blocked and begin to burn out after a
difficult hurdle. This will also help you out in determining which end of the
stack you want to end up in. It's so easy nowaday for everyone online to say
"I wanna be a fullstack unicorn so I make the big bucks!!!!" ,but then you
just end up being mediocre at 2 things, rather than focusing on front end or
back end and really excelling in that area. A mentor will help you figure out
what you're actually interested in and keep you focused.

Code review -- Not only will having a mentor help teach you best ENTERPRISE
practices, but they could give you other ways to think of solutions rather
than going onto a Udemy class where the instructor types some code and you
regurgitate then eventually get stuck in tutorial hell. I uppercased
enterprise here because most online courses teach you the easiest, least
secure, and just show me a working website as fast as possible. That doesn't
translate well into the professional world.

Way into a junior role -- This is the big one. If you truly stick with
learning web dev and your mentor sticks with you and sees potential then you
will have an easy way out of customer service. You won't be paid as much as if
you had transitioned to a new company, because that is how our HR overlords
work, but you'll have something that differentiates you from other self taught
web dev's. Real world experience and references to boot.

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bharatm
Look up Freecodecamp. It is free.

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avinassh
I would suggest you to look into FreeCodeCamp. The content is really good, and
they have a nice and helpful community.

All the best!

