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My Beginning - JavaScript



I started out on the journey of learning to code on 18 June 2020.

That morning, I woke up, checked my phone and saw a post on LinkedIn. It was written by someone I didn't know, an ex-Uber driver, and they simply expressed how glad they were that they'd learned to code. I declared to my husband then and there that I was going to learn to code. He just looked back at me sleepily. I have since found out that, by utter coincidence, the ex-Uber driver is in fact Nat Sharpe, a software engineer who's wife, Martha Sharpe, I own the book of and met within the Twitter community.

I had been made redundant from my job as an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a FinTech startup due to the pandemic and I was feeling a little lost, spending all my time walking and running and just generally feeling like I should be doing something - but I just didn't know what.

I had exactly no knowledge of coding, bar a little dabble in VBA in my previous job - again, I had mostly taught myself. I had never opened or thought to look at Visual Studio Code before, and would half listen to my husband (a solution architect at a FinTech company) when he talked about his latest API adventures.

After discussing what language I should learn with my husband, I settled on JavaScript due to the amount of options I would have regarding front or back end development. After a coffee, I searched on Udemy, a site I'd used before, for JavaScript beginner courses and found one on sale. A bargain! I had prepared to invest in my knowledge journey, but the sale price was about £10.

So far, I would say I'm a little less than a quarter of the way through my 'JavaScript basics' course and as I'm participating in the #100DaysOfCode challenge on Twitter, I think I'll need to get a new course by the end of that - which I fully intend to do. This isn't only a 100 day learning journey! I'm enjoying it immensely so far, and I've learned a lot - just don't ask me how to use .reduce()......



Speaking of Twitter - I have been blown away by the level of support that the tech community offer! I have had complete strangers, from the other side of the world, spend considerable time trying to help me fix a problem in a load of code that I've written but don't fully understand. People from all stages of their learning journey - #CodeNewbies like me, and developers with 20+  years experience - all mingle together and teach, learn, make silly memes about each other, and encourage each other! I can post that I'm having real trouble understanding a new concept that I've come across and would like to learn, and I'll often be inundated with peoples code snips, examples, explanations and offers of help! 
I've used Twitter in the past, but it's never felt as inclusive or supportive as it does now.

My family has also been a wonderful support - my husband, with degrees everywhere and over a decade experience in seemingly everything except JavaScript - my mum, who doesn't understand what I'm doing but says she's proud, and my younger brother who says 'that's well cool!'



Not everyone has a support network that they can rely on, and you never know people's personal circumstances - I go out of my way on platforms such as Twitter or any blog I find useful, to spread positivity and motivation. There are always people who find things tough - I struggle with remembering what I've learned the day before sometimes, but I find that micro-blogging, such as Twitter, helps me to both motivate myself and others, but also to hold myself accountable and remember what I've done!

When I have a firmer grasp of what everything means, I look forward to helping others to learn and understand the basics. Until then, I'll continue to listen to lectures, write broken code, and complain about brackets to anyone who will listen!
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