₦airaland Forum

I started coding in 2024. I picked up Java using Introduction to Programming Using Java Version 9, JavaFX Edition May, 2022
David J. Eck, even though I lacked consistency: switching from one career path to another by the end of that year, I was at the fifth chapter of 13, thus I understood types (primitive/reference), conditional/loop statement, subroutines(methods), scanner class, and some OOP stuff. I aimed to understand programming first before I niched, cus the book contains reasonable number of exercises and quizes that would make one to start thinking like a programmer but people keep telling me I should start building stuff, that I didn't need to understand everything first blah blah blah you know that kind of advice from people who can already center a <div>. So, I took the common step and went to YouTube. I downloaded a two-year-old full playlist on how to become a full-stack Java developer in 50 days by an Indian guy. I even requested that he send me the handout he used, which he kindly emailed to me. (He later emailed me when he was about to start a new cohort, sha ... lol). The first 25 videos cleared Java core, from variables to OOP to collection/generic to multithreading to JavaIO package, I crammed along, the objective was to go through frontend with Angular, JPA, hibernate, database, building tools, pattern and spring/springBoot. Just in 50 days! I stopped around video 36 or 37. Why did I stop? I stopped when I realised that most offers for Java developers are kind of tied to E-commerce, fintech or mobile dev and being honest with myself, I knew I knew nothing worthy of getting such an offer (without a degree).

Fast forward to March 2025, I joined 3MTT cohort 3, chose the software development course, and the stack used is the popular MERN/PERN stack. We were taught HTML/CSS, JS and React with links to YouTube videos (Mosh and NetNinja tutorials populated everywhere) ...

To be continued

learn but keep building stuffs or contributing to projects