Everyone that knows me off Nairaland knows I am a huge pessimist but when it comes to tech or the tech industry in general I am the greatest optimist you can find. I believe tech has the potential to change people's lives and it has done so. It is also the only industry that thrives on merit. No one cares what school you went to, what grades you had. What people care about is what you can do. You can't say the same about engineering or law or medicine.

I made this same thread last year and after working professionally for a while now, I believe there are some things that are important but I overlooked and I am making this again to guide the newbies on the right path. This thread is subjectively my own opinion but you can do your own research before picking up a path to stick to.

The focus on this thread will be on web development and the path to learning it right as I believe web development is the most profitable aspect of programming a Nigerian can get into. There are other fields but I don't know how profitable they are or how easy they are to break into.

If I was to start learning web development today in order to get a junior web dev role, I would start like this :

I would learn HTML. This is practically the easiest path and I believe absolutely everyone can learn this. After that, I would move to CSS. This is where the problem starts and by this level, people start to give up. I believe CSS is easy especially with the right course and I would always recommend Maximillian Schwarz CSS the complete guide course as that course made me not fear CSS. As you are learning these things, please build alongside. Dont just watch videos and sleep and think you have known them. Trust me you haven't known them at all. Implement the knowledge to cement it.

Once you are comfortable with CSS move on to Javascript. At this level, 80 percent of self-learners have given up. It's most people's first programming language and honestly, as a first language, javascript isn't easy. I also recommend the javascript course from Maximillian Schwarz. I still believe it's the best javascript course ever made and I still refer to it in my daily job as a developer.

Now this is where it gets tricky, I usually tell people to move on to React after Javascript, and rightly so but once you have learned javascript and you have found yourself to be very comfortable with it, start learning data structures and algorithms. I used to say this isnt important at all and was a waste of time but after working as a dev for more than a year, trust me I was just being very stupid. You cant even be a programmer without solid fundamentals in data structures. It doesn't matter whether you are a platform developer, a frontend developer, a backend developer, a WordPress developer or whatnot. You need your data structures and algorithms. It's like building a house on sand. Sooner or later it's gonna come collapsing. How do you even implement infinite scrolling in React without knowing graphs and how they work? Thats just one scenario. Double for loops in salesforce will break your org beyond proportions you cant imagine and a whole lot of other scenarios I cant even list out here which I have experienced for myself.


You don't need to spend 8 hours a day figuring out data structures and algorithms once comfortable with javascript. I recommend an hour or two a day. Learn the basic data structures (arrays, LinkedList, stacks, queues, graphs, trees) and the basic sort algorithms even if you don't understand it initially, cram it. Every day repeat what you have crammed then solve questions on leetcode easy to medium. No one will ask hard to a junior dev even medium is also very rare but just do it. Aside even learning data structures to be a better developer, its also the path to the very highly paid jobs. The earlier you learn them the better job hunting will go for you. Just imagine it like this, it takes you 4 months to be comfortable with javascript and you need like another 4 months for react, a platform and your projects and you are solving 1 to 2 dsa questions daily in the 4 months up to react. When ready to job hunt, count how many questions that is instead of waiting for when you have everything and you start job hunting to start learning it and you start failing interviews everywhere. The earlier the better even if you dont understand cram. Companies use the same questions which are available online.

Next is a javascript framework. I recommend React, I won't even advise my enemy to waste their time with vue but some will do it and still come online to cry. The react ecosystem is big and getting bigger. You have gatsby, you have blitzjs, you have Nextjs. Even in blockchain and web3 go and check most of the jobs require proficiency in React. Learn React !!! Enough said.

At this level, you should have your projects beautiful nice designs well created and implemented. Create a CV and start job hunting. Dont limit yourself to Nigeria. Apply everywhere. UK, US, Japan, Sweden. Tech transcends borders. Apply to jobs like a mad man.

At this job hunting stage, leetcode should be increased to at least 4 hours everyday and learning should still be done after React I recommend a platform. Same as my thread last year but most platform dev interviews are still algo based so no issue for you there.

You can also start looking at backend too but honestly if you have followed everything here, getting a job should be very easy.

Nice one,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

I have two questions bro, pls can you share your thought on them?

1. Which course or Book would you recommend to learn Data Structures and Algorithms in Javascript?

2. My research have lead me to many Quora and Reddit replies that advised beginners to learn DSA using a strongly typed language like Java,C# or c++, some even went as far as telling beginners not to learn DSA using Javascript. What do you this about this?

This is a great advice. Thank you, Op.

Skykid1208:
Nice one,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

I have two questions bro, pls can you share your thought on them?

1. Which course or Book would you recommend to learn Data Structures and Algorithms in Javascript?

2. My research have lead me to many Quora and Reddit replies that advised beginners to learn DSA using a strongly typed language like Java,C# or c++, some even went as far as telling beginners not to learn DSA using Javascript. What do you this about this?

Honestly, I would advise you to learn DSA with a language like java if you can but it can be done with Javascript. Grokking Algorithms is the easiest book so far to get into DSA but for interviews best to use Cracking the coding interview as the questions are repeated.

Op, i've been reading your posts as a guest for a while, and your story really motivates me to keep learning. Pls, is Jquery necessary for wordpress development, or is vanila js and php ok to get started?

I have started learning DSA as you advised on WhatsApp but what I still find confusing is: does PHP/Laravel DSA courses exist? I have searched but not getting any.

ClixMaster:
I have started learning DSA as you advised on WhatsApp but what I still find confusing is: does PHP/Laravel DSA courses exist? I have searched but not getting any.

Just use PHP. I don't think there's any core PHP DSA course but you can transcribe from the languages used to PHP

divine404:
Op, i've been reading your posts as a guest for a while, and your story really motivates me to keep learning. Pls, is Jquery necessary for wordpress development, or is vanila js and php ok to get started?

Yeah you dont need jquery. Vanilla JS and PHP is okay but I will advise you to look at jamstack with React as that's the future of wordpress.

Nice one boss.
Am currently on CSS and I've been using freecodecamp
Pls do you mind sharing the CSS course or link to where I can download it for free.

tensazangetsu20:


Yeah you dont need jquery. Vanilla JS and PHP is okay but I will advise you to look at jamstack with React as that's the future of wordpress.

Okay, I'll do that. Thank you.

Thank you sir for this, always looking forward for your threads/posts.

tensazangetsu20:


Honestly, I would advise you to learn DSA with a language like java if you can but it can be done with Javascript. Grokking Algorithms is the easiest book so far to get into DSA but for interviews best to use Cracking the coding interview as the questions are repeated.

Ok bro, thanks for the reply

tensazangetsu20
Boss you never disappoint me.

I am really grateful once again.......

kennethfranc:
Nice one boss.
Am currently on CSS and I've been using freecodecamp
Pls do you mind sharing the CSS course or link to where I can download it for free.

You can download the file on Downloadly .net .

folake4u:
This is a great advice. Thank you, Op.

You wanna get your hands "dirty"?

tensazangetsu20:
Everyone that knows me off Nairaland knows I am a huge pessimist but when it comes to tech or the tech industry in general I am the greatest optimist you can find. I believe tech has the potential to change people's lives and it has done so. It is also the only industry that thrives on merit. No one cares what school you went to, what grades you had. What people care about is what you can do. You can't say the same about engineering or law or medicine.

I made this same thread last year and after working professionally for a while now, I believe there are some things that are important but I overlooked and I am making this again to guide the newbies on the right path. This thread is subjectively my own opinion but you can do your own research before picking up a path to stick to.

The focus on this thread will be on web development and the path to learning it right as I believe web development is the most profitable aspect of programming a Nigerian can get into. There are other fields but I don't know how profitable they are or how easy they are to break into.

If I was to start learning web development today in order to get a junior web dev role, I would start like this :

I would learn HTML. This is practically the easiest path and I believe absolutely everyone can learn this. After that, I would move to CSS. This is where the problem starts and by this level, people start to give up. I believe CSS is easy especially with the right course and I would always recommend Maximillian Schwarz CSS the complete guide course as that course made me not fear CSS. As you are learning these things, please build alongside. Dont just watch videos and sleep and think you have known them. Trust me you haven't known them at all. Implement the knowledge to cement it.

Once you are comfortable with CSS move on to Javascript. At this level, 80 percent of self-learners have given up. It's most people's first programming language and honestly, as a first language, javascript isn't easy. I also recommend the javascript course from Maximillian Schwarz. I still believe it's the best javascript course ever made and I still refer to it in my daily job as a developer.

Now this is where it gets tricky, I usually tell people to move on to React after Javascript, and rightly so but once you have learned javascript and you have found yourself to be very comfortable with it, start learning data structures and algorithms. I used to say this isnt important at all and was a waste of time but after working as a dev for more than a year, trust me I was just being very stupid. You cant even be a programmer without solid fundamentals in data structures. It doesn't matter whether you are a platform developer, a frontend developer, a backend developer, a WordPress developer or whatnot. You need your data structures and algorithms. It's like building a house on sand. Sooner or later it's gonna come collapsing. How do you even implement infinite scrolling in React without knowing graphs and how they work? Thats just one scenario. Double for loops in salesforce will break your org beyond proportions you cant imagine and a whole lot of other scenarios I cant even list out here which I have experienced for myself.


You don't need to spend 8 hours a day figuring out data structures and algorithms once comfortable with javascript. I recommend an hour or two a day. Learn the basic data structures (arrays, LinkedList, stacks, queues, graphs, trees) and the basic sort algorithms even if you don't understand it initially, cram it. Every day repeat what you have crammed then solve questions on leetcode easy to medium. No one will ask hard to a junior dev even medium is also very rare but just do it. Aside even learning data structures to be a better developer, its also the path to the very highly paid jobs. The earlier you learn them the better job hunting will go for you. Just imagine it like this, it takes you 4 months to be comfortable with javascript and you need like another 4 months for react, a platform and your projects and you are solving 1 to 2 dsa questions daily in the 4 months up to react. When ready to job hunt, count how many questions that is instead of waiting for when you have everything and you start job hunting to start learning it and you start failing interviews everywhere. The earlier the better even if you dont understand cram. Companies use the same questions which are available online.

Next is a javascript framework. I recommend React, I won't even advise my enemy to waste their time with vue but some will do it and still come online to cry. The react ecosystem is big and getting bigger. You have gatsby, you have blitzjs, you have Nextjs. Even in blockchain and web3 go and check most of the jobs require proficiency in React. Learn React !!! Enough said.

At this level, you should have your projects beautiful nice designs well created and implemented. Create a CV and start job hunting. Dont limit yourself to Nigeria. Apply everywhere. UK, US, Japan, Sweden. Tech transcends borders. Apply to jobs like a mad man.

At this job hunting stage, leetcode should be increased to at least 4 hours everyday and learning should still be done after React I recommend a platform. Same as my thread last year but most platform dev interviews are still algo based so no issue for you there.

You can also start looking at backend too but honestly if you have followed everything here, getting a job should be very easy.

I will like to ask a question, please do you have alternative for CSS and JavaScript tutorials because the person you recommended I went to check now and the charge is 34k+(where I wan see dat Kai money?) when converted to naira.
I know nothing goes for nothing o but as e be now na me dey hustle by myself o. Thanks.

tensazangetsu20:

Just use PHP. I don't think there's any core PHP DSA course but you can transcribe from the languages used to PHP

Alright

TLDR:
1. Fullstack developer bootcamp
2. Harvard CS50x courses
3. TeachyourselfCS or OSSU or P1XT
4. Read the docs
====

If I was to start all over (from a fullstack developer point of view) I'll do a Fullstack Developer bootcamp from any of the courses with good reviews to just get an idea of how all the pieces come together to work.

After that I'll go asynchronous with my learning pattern. Two parallel streams of learning, "middle-down" and "middle-up". That bootcamp course may pretty much put me at the middle, where I'll know so much to get stuff done and to fuel my desire to know how stuff really works under the hood. I don't want to be the guy that doesnt know how/when to use recursion over a loop iteration.

// for middle-down
// objective: to deepen my understanding of the fundamentals that hardly change
======
I'll take all the Harvard CS50x courses
Then I'll take one of any of the following:
1. TeachyourselfCS
2. OSSU
3. P1XT

// for middle-up
// objective: to broaden my understand and keep up with changing technologies
// this will take a lifetime so there's no end to this phase
=====
I'll focus on reading the docs for all the techs I was exposed to in the bootcamp. So this is where I'll dig into the docs for the following
MDN, NodeJS, Express, Fastify, React, Next, Git, Openshift, Postman, Docker and so on.
Its also in this phase I'll read some good books like EloquentJS, Code Complete 2 and the YDKJS series.


There's so much involved in being a programmer but we tend to focus on a small aspect of it: coding... I may never be able to fully explain how I dislike the term 'coder'.

In the corporate world you'll quickly get to a point where you spend less than half of your 40-hour week actually writing code and more of that time:
* in meetings (some coulda just been an email),
* planning the development of features,
* peer reviewing PRs,
* writing tests with a decent amount of coverage,
* setting up delivery pipelines,
* having to triage defects,
* writing documentations

DualCore1:
TLDR:
1. Fullstack developer bootcamp
2. Harvard CS50x courses
3. TeachyourselfCS or OSSU or P1XT
4. Read the docs
====

If I was to start all over (from a fullstack developer point of view) I'll do a Fullstack Developer bootcamp from any of the courses with good reviews to just get an idea of how all the pieces come together to work.

After that I'll go asynchronous with my learning pattern. Two parallel streams of learning, "middle-down" and "middle-up". That bootcamp course may pretty much put me at the middle, where I'll know so much to get stuff done and to fuel my desire to know how stuff really works under the hood. I don't want to be the guy that doesnt know how/when to use recursion over a loop iteration.

// for middle-down
// objective: to deepen my understanding of the fundamentals that hardly change
======
I'll take all the Harvard CS50x courses
Then I'll take one of any of the following:
1. TeachyourselfCS
2. OSSU
3. P1XT

// for middle-up
// objective: to broaden my understand and keep up with changing technologies
// this will take a lifetime so there's no end to this phase
=====
I'll focus on reading the docs for all the techs I was exposed to in the bootcamp. So this is where I'll dig into the docs for the following
MDN, NodeJS, Express, Fastify, React, Next, Git, Openshift, Postman, Docker and so on.
Its also in this phase I'll read some good books like EloquentJS, Code Complete 2 and the YDKJS series.


There's so much involved in being a programmer but we tend to focus on a small aspect of it: coding... I may never be able to fully explain how I dislike the term 'coder'.

In the corporate world you'll quickly get to a point where you spend less than half of your 40-hour week actually writing code and more of that time:
* in meetings (some coulda just been an email),
* planning the development of features,
* peer reviewing PRs,
* writing tests with a decent amount of coverage,
* setting up delivery pipelines,
* having to triage defects,
* writing documentations

This is golden. I find myself focusing more on computer science fundamentals these days. I only learn shiny new tech at work when I absolutely need to to get the job done.

remi1444:
You wanna get your hands "dirty"?

I dont know yet. I'm just weighing my options.

[quote author=DualCore1 post=107250578]TLDR:
1. Fullstack developer bootcamp
2. Harvard CS50x courses
3. TeachyourselfCS or OSSU or P1XT
4. Read the docs
====

If I was to start all over (from a fullstack developer point of view) I'll do a Fullstack Developer bootcamp from any of the courses with good reviews to just get an idea of how all the pieces come together to work.

After that I'll go asynchronous with my learning pattern. Two parallel streams of learning, "middle-down" and "middle-up". That bootcamp course may pretty much put me at the middle, where I'll know so much to get stuff done and to fuel my desire to know how stuff really works under the hood. I don't want to be the guy that doesnt know how/when to use recursion over a loop iteration.

// for middle-down
// objective: to deepen my understanding of the fundamentals that hardly change
======
I'll take all the Harvard CS50x courses
Then I'll take one of any of the following:
1. TeachyourselfCS
2. OSSU
3. P1XT

// for middle-up
// objective: to broaden my understand and keep up with changing technologies
// this will take a lifetime so there's no end to this phase
=====
I'll focus on reading the docs for all the techs I was exposed to in the bootcamp. So this is where I'll dig into the docs for the following
MDN, NodeJS, Express, Fastify, React, Next, Git, Openshift, Postman, Docker and so on.
Its also in this phase I'll read some good books like EloquentJS, Code Complete 2 and the YDKJS series.


There's so much involved in being a programmer but we tend to focus on a small aspect of it: coding... I may never be able to fully explain how I dislike the term 'coder'.

In the corporate world you'll quickly get to a point where you spend less than half of your 40-hour week actually writing code and more of that time:
* in meetings (some coulda just been an email),
* planning the development of features,
* peer reviewing PRs,
* writing tests with a decent amount of coverage,
* setting up delivery pipelines,
* having to triage defects,
* writing documentations

[/q

Wow, I get the gist now. Thank you very much for this.

remi1444:
You can download the file on Downloadly .net .

The site is not free to download from.

Newusername:


I will like to ask a question, please do you have alternative for CSS and JavaScript tutorials because the person you recommended I went to check now and the charge is 34k+(where I wan see dat Kai money?) when converted to naira.
I know nothing goes for nothing o but as e be now na me dey hustle by myself o. Thanks.

Just keep on checking you can get it for 4900 that's how I buy courses there I even got a best seller web devt course for 3500 some months back

The5DME:
The site is not free to download from.

It was absolutely free when I downloaded. Let me get the full link to the course.



Here it's:

https://downloadly (dot) net/2020/16/5874/03/udemy-css-the-complete-guide-incl-flexbox-grid-sass/23/?#/5874-udemy-222105111001.html

Newusername:


I will like to ask a question, please do you have alternative for CSS and JavaScript tutorials because the person you recommended I went to check now and the charge is 34k+(where I wan see dat Kai money?) when converted to naira.
I know nothing goes for nothing o but as e be now na me dey hustle by myself o. Thanks.

I have paid for the Javascript course. If you want I can share my login information with you.

Abraham22:


Just keep on checking you can get it for 4900 that's how I buy courses there I even got a best seller web devt course for 3500 some months back

Ok. Thanks boss.

remi1444:
I have paid for the Javascript course. If you want I can share my login information with you.

Oh! That is nice of you sir, I will get back to you when I need them. I just wan start CSS. Thanks.

remi1444:
You can download the file on Downloadly .net .

I've already purchased the course. Thanks for your suggestion

Good morning
@tensazangetsu20 pls I paid for this course thinking that the price was $14 only to wake up this morning to see this debit. I've already requested a refund.

Pls kindly share the material if you have it

I'm not sure how good maximam is but I think the complete JS by Jonas schmedtmann is also good.

kennethfranc:
Good morning
@tensazangetsu20 pls I paid for this course thinking that the price was $14 only to wake up this morning to see this debit. I've already requested a refund.

Pls kindly share the material if you have it

Check tutsgalaxy.net