The Only Way To Learn To Code is to Actually Spend Time Coding

It’s a great time to learn how to code. There’s no shortage of developer jobs, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. With an overabundance of free programming resources, the barrier of entry has never been lower.

When I first started learning to program, it went something like this:

I’ve heard Javascript is great and easy to learn.

Free Code Camp is all over the internet, I’ll check that out. 
Wait, my friend told me Code School is better. 
There are some highly rated courses on Udemy, maybe I’ll try that out.

Okay… Someone told me Python is a great language to start out with.

Learn Python is the first result on Google, it has to be great.
Code Academy has great reviews, perhaps I’ll try that for a few days.
Python.org is Python’s actual website, it can’t get better than that… right?

As great as it is to have access to all of these courses and information, it ended up being detrimental to my learning process.

I was spending more time trying to find the right tool to learn than actually learning.

I’ve found this is a common trait among those who are earlier on in their development path. Without previous knowledge of the subject, how are you supposed to know if the resource will be effective?

This is one of the more difficult aspects of learning to code, it’s hard to judge what is effective. As a beginner, you might not know what your most effective learning method is. When I started, I thought video tutorials and code-along exercises were the most effective. Later on, I found reading documentation and building were most effective for me.

How did I come to this conclusion?

I realized the only way to learn how to code is to spend time coding and building.

Spending 2 hours a day researching what to learn while only spending an hour a day coding wasn’t getting me very far. Sure, I was aware of all the resources available but I wasn’t really learning how to code.

If I wanted to learn to code, then I needed to decide on one resource and spend more time writing code. In my case, I enrolled in DevMountain which ended up being the best decision I’ve ever made.

I coded and built all day, every day which taught me more than I could have ever learned through tutorials.

By spending less time trying to find what learning resources to use and more time actually coding, I was amazed how much I could learn and actually understand.

Whether you are just starting to look into programming, have started a programming course, or already a developer and want to pick up another language/tool, remember that it doesn’t matter what you create as long as you are creating.

If you’d like to learn more about my coding journey or just want to say hello, reach out to me at twitter.com/petermilesdev or hello@petermiles.io .