My Journey Of Learning To Code.

My journey of learning to code is pretty weird. In 2018, during summer, I was getting bored like anything. Back then, I was an 11 year old kid for whom school was too easy. I used to casually scroll through YouTube, watch some videos, and stuff like that, but I didn’t ever think that I could change my life from it, until I did.

I was just scrolling through my feed, when I saw this guy: Clever Programmer who was a coder. His video title said “Why Should You Learn To Code?”

I was really interested in this video, so I clicked on it. This one video kind of changed my life. He talked about why to learn to code, who can learn to code, and which is the best language to start off with as a junior developer. I was fascinated by this, and I could not believe him when he said that “Its not that hard to learn to code”. I checked out this amazing language: Python. I could catch new concepts pretty easily, and I was able to learn the basics of programming and python in about a weeks time. Till here, the story looks good right?

Until I started to follow video tutorials and making projects by copying those tutorials. It felt so simple to just copy and paste those few lines of code which they wrote and get some output. The only problem, The little kid who was passionate about Programming was now stuck in tutorial hell.

I was able to make all sorts of projects: snake game, GUI calculator, etc-, but whenever I gave the projects a shot by myself, I just couldn’t understand how to make something happen. Even python, which is by far the simplest language to start off with, seemed like something even more complex than assembly to me. This was the point where I quit, but not for long…

I had been studying a while, and it wasn’t until October 2019 that my interest in coding was reborn.

I met a person in my school who should not be in school. He is essentially a god of programming for his age. He knew languages like c, c++, and he was learning python when I met him. When I asked him, “Hey dude, what do you do sitting in front of the computer all day?”, his simple response was “programming.” Having checked out programming myself, I had known how hard it was to get out of tutorial hell myself. I genuinely asked him “How are you able to make projects?”, he said, “Just like any other programmer.” I said, “ Dude, I have checked out programming myself, and I cant do anything except of copying and pasting the code from YouTube tutorials.”He immediately knew what was my position. He said, “I see, which language do you code in?”, my obvious response was “python”. He said, “Its easy to get stuck in tutorial hell with a language as simple as python”. I said, “The what?”. “Tutorial hell, its that situation where you cant move any further than watching YouTube videos and blindly copying the code, without understanding. Its essentially the same position where you are right now.” Wow, those were some wise words. I wondered, and asked, “How exactly is it that you’re not in the same position that I am in?”, he said “You watch YouTube videos right? I don’t.” This stunned me, A person who is as experienced as him doesn’t watch YouTube videos for programming? That puzzled me. so I asked, “Well, how exactly do you learn to code without watching YouTube videos?”. He replied, “Ever heard of docs?, that’s the key to learning to code.” Damn, this guy had my attention now. But that was about it for the day, I went back home, did my homework, and I watched yet another YouTube video, by the same guy who initially got me into coding. This time, it was about, “How to escape tutorial purgatory?”, I didn’t know what that word meant, but still I watched the video. There, he talked more about what is tutorial hell and how to get out of it. This video was the hidden key I didn’t have yet. I was blown away by the amount of dedication that it took to get out of tutorial hell. This video kinda got me out of coding itself.

Now, after watching the video, I thought to myself, “Damn, this coding thing is hard…Why should I even care?”, so that was the moment where I left the thought of learning to code once again, until covid hit the world.

“All the jobs are basically over, and I have no clue how I shall be running my small business anymore…” said my dad when covid hit. This wasn’t the best place to be in. Living in India, my life was basically screwed up. I couldn’t go cycling with my friends, school classes were happening online, and now basically I was bored again. This time too, the same thing happened as it happened 2 years back. A kid living in India was bored like anything, and he was just scrolling through his YouTube feed. Blessing YouTube’s algorithm, I got a video from Clever Programmer again in my feed. “Do you wanna beat this covid situation by coding?”, this time I thought, “Hmm, I have enough time now that I can go learn code and not be stuck in tutorial hell. I watched that video, and I was blown off. “We’re going to be having a JavaScript challenge and the winner will be getting a 6000$ worth coding bootcamp for free. “Damn!” I thought to myself. “This coding thing is worth so much?”. I had some experience with python, and I knew the basics pretty well. So I checked this language out too, and it turns out as if JS isn’t that hard of a language to learn. I started to read some articles and also, I knew that what tutorial hell was and how to escape it. Having previous experience in tutorial hell, I knew that I didn’t want to get back to that. So, I got in touch with my friend again, and he said, “This challenge is pretty good, but this will require a bit of knowledge of javascript.” I was thinking at the back of my head, How do I learn JavaScript?, so I asked him. He told me some good resources, and I checked out w3schools. Now I knew that I wasn’t stuck in tutorial hell anymore, and I can go on for the challenge, I gave it my best and I made the google maps project, Although, I did not win the competition. “Okay”, I thought, “The least that happened this time was that I came out with an amazing project and I learnt so much more about APIs, for loops, data mining, and more. Best part being that I was able to get out of tutorial hell now. I made so many projects with JavaScript on my own, and I was able to get a good grasp of it. Now, I wanted to move on, and learn something more advanced. I went on to learn this amazing javascript library called react, and I was able to get a good grasp of it in a few weeks. I made so many projects and stuff that my portfolio went “BOOOM!!!”. This was all amazing, until the second version of the challenge came along. By this time, I had known a lot of stuff about react, and discovering this challenge was amazing. I made the amazon clone, and I was able to submit the project, and, guess what? this time, I put literally 40+ hrs to make the project come to life. It was a hell of a productive week, and I learnt so much from it. Now, I had fallen in love with the Clever Programmer channel, and I followed every single one of the CP team on Instagram. By 12th of september, I had around 6 months of experience with javascript, and I jumped on a live stream of the main tutor at the clever programmer team, Sonny. This stream took place on Instagram, and Sonny was picking people up. Having a special spot for him in my heart, I wanted to meet him in person. So I commented- “Hey sonny! It would be amazing if you could let me jump on the stream too! Really wanna meet #papareact himself. Guess what? I got in the stream. This itself was a Proud moment for me, and adrenaline was rushing through every vein in my body. I could not stand the fact that a guy as normal as me was getting to meet papa react himself. As soon as I got in the stream, he asked me, “How old are you?” I said, “I am 13!”. He was surprised, he saw a spark in me, and he was blown. The stream went on and on, and I told him how my journey was, and He was so surprised, that he said,”Damn, you have a hell of a story, Your energy is INSANE! I need you, and you know what? I am gonna do something big for you. Are you excited to know what?”, I wasn’t excited at all, even though I should’ve been. I was trembling, and I didn’t know whether it was due to his words or due to the AC, lol. I was nervous, I knew that, and I said, “No, I am really scared to be honest.” He said something that I will never EVER forget in my life. It was 1:15 am in the morning, and something huge happened with me. He said, “ I am gonna get you in Profit With JavaScript for free.”

A 13 year old kid got a course worth 600$ for free. This was unbelievable for me, I was a nobody, and I got into a 600$ worth course for free? WTF! I could not believe it AT ALL.

I freaked out, I was like “DAMN! LETS GOOOOO!!!!” getting this course was my dream. They teach everything from basics of javascript all the way till react and making an income from whatever we learn.

Major takeaways from my story:1.Don’t get in stuck in tutorial hell and waste precious time. If i hadn’t been in tutorial hell, I am pretty sure that I would’ve been way better a programmer than what I am right now. 2. Don’t EVER lose hope. If I hadn’t stuck through every single bug that I had faced in the amazon clone, I don’t think that I would’ve been in the situation that I am in Right now. 3. Surround yourself with developers. If it wasn’t for that friend of mine who kept pushing me through and encouraging me to be a better coder, I don’t think that i would’ve even tried coding in the first place. and last, but not the least, 4. Don’t make any excuses. This is the time to make your life better, It is covid. Don’t wait for life to give you an opportunity. Make one. I am coding on an 8 year old laptop, But that doesn’t mean that I will stop coding. I didn’t have a stable WiFi, so I used my phone to watch the videos and follow along. Its of no point to make excuses as a developer. Life is always gonna be giving you trouble, and you don’t wanna give up in Every hard time. It might get hard, but, as my mom says, “Whenever a door closes, There’s always another one which opens…” Trust me, you won’t regret sticking through every hard position in life, Its the best thing that you’ll do.

Thank you. I hope that this article brought value to you.

Keep coding.

Stay home, stay safe