The #1 issue of beginner developers

while being stuck at home because of the Coronavirus, a lot of people I know started learning code 👨‍💻👩🏽‍💻

This is an amazing way to adjust to the shifting economy and our changing world. But it's not always easy, especially doing it on your own.

Almost all who start from scratch has the following issue:

Crossing the gap from a basic understanding of the programming language, like functions, arrays, DOM, etc, into building what they actually envision.

There are a few simple steps that will help you overcome this:

1. Have a clear goal that you are PASSIONATE about. This might seem like an item to put in the end, but this is actually what will give you the energy to overcome all the struggles. And they are not easy. Don’t be afraid to dream big.

2. Take your goal and strip it to clear bare-bone functionalities and design. In the tech industry this is called MVP - minimal viable product. You can add things later, but this will give you the clarity of how your product should look and behave.

3. Create a basic design, even a wireframe on a piece of paper, that will show how your product should look like and write down what should happen on each page.

4. Start coding what you know. Google tutorials for what you don’t know. The more specific your questions are, the better answers you will get. If your features are clearly defined, you will have clear questions.

5. If you have no idea how to approach a certain feature, map out its logic (without code). For example: once I click element X, element Y should appear, and once I click inside Y, it should send a call to an API. Now you know you have to use code that responds to a click on element X, changes the visibility of element Y and making an API call. Each of those is clearly defined functionalities that you can search for a how-to.

To summarize: define what you want to make and break it down into clearly-defined chunks. This way you always know what to do next and even if you don’t know how, you get clear questions.

Good luck.

Let me know if the process helps you in the comments!