Thread by @stillfreelancin

How to get into web development without any kind of degree:

THREAD

#30daysofthreads

The first thing you need to do is get a computer. You will need a machine you own, as you'll need free reign to install things.

Next, you will need to learn HTML and CSS. You can do this for free online, but you'll need to use your machine to do practice work.

I would recommend getting an IDE like Sublimetext, as the text colors and code hints make life easier. You can use whichever one you choose to make .html files to do your practicing with.

Create a new file in your IDE and save as "somefilename.html" for practicing.

You can find some decent resources for learning the basics of HTML and CSS, and you don't have to learn all of either, but the more you know, the better.

It will take a little bit before you should feel comfortable to move onto the next step. Make sure you are confident.

Use the free tutorials from W3Schools to get you started, if you aren't sure where to go:

HTML: w3schools.com/html/default.a…

CSS: w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Next, you'll want to learn Javascript.

To be a competent JS dev will take a year at least, so don't worry about rushing. It takes time to understand the language and how to use it in a variety of situations.

You can learn JS online too, and you can practice it in the same way.

You can use W3Schools as a free resource to learn JS too: w3schools.com/js/default.asp

Remember, the point is to learn the building blocks, so you can then apply them. You don't need to learn every single concept before you hit the ground running.

📢 IMPORTANT 📢

You should be practicing *way* more than you read.

At first, you'll need to read more. But as you go, you'll practice more and read less. Putting what you learn into practice is how it sinks in.

To practice/add to all of your new skills, come up with side projects to do.

You can make a basic website, or a game, or a gallery.

Go to websites you like and try to recreate them.

Find free, public APIs and request/display data from them.

You can do a *lot* for free.

Next, get into server-side dev. You can learn a different language for this, or stick with JS. I would start with JS, then move to at least one or two other languages.

I'll assume you're starting with JS. You need to read about Node.js and NPM.

You can use NPM to install Express, which has plenty of examples to get you running a server on your local machine.

Use this opportunity to play around with server-side JS. Hello world and all that jazz.

The NPM ecosystem has a ton of useful packages for your projects.

Find example projects to work on.

Write your own APIs.

This is a good time to start looking at databases, both SQL and NoSql. There are packages to connect both within Node, so you can save data to a DB, get it back out, do fancy things to it, whatever you want.

When you finally feel comfortable with all of that, it's time to learn how to sell yourself and find clients.

I could do a whole thread on that, but...

@DennisDemori wrote a guide to help you find clients and price your services.

Get it here: gumroad.com/a/998356083

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys found this useful.

If you need one-on-one learning consultation (paid), DM me.

I can also point you in the right direction if you have basic questions.