I would like to code for a living and to contribute to open source projects and things, but my coding skills are absolute shit after taking online courses and watching video tutorials. How can I learn to code for real?

What I would like to learn is algorithms, web development (“full stack”), how layouts work (both in like kotlin compose and HTML) and how to read other peoples code. Maybe thats more than I can chew, but its probably good for me to try out many things before getting settled on one.

Now I have been coding for a while already (~ 4 years), but I kind of feel like I need more guidance to be able to actually create code that works as intended intentionally, and not through trial and error / stack overflow. As for what level i am at, CS50 is probably my only qualification, I have played around with APIs (I.E. making discord bots), and made some html “apps” (horribly made, but things like the “genius” game and a calculator) and “prototype” react websites (as in, really bare bones, barely working).

I do plan on taking CS or something similar, but i’m not yet in college, and I would like to have a good head start before getting there.

Sorry for my bad English, and any help is appreciated.

  • jacecomix@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    1 day ago
    1. You are trying to learn a lot of different things at once. I don’t think you’ll find many “coding” experts in the real world, but you will find react experts and flask experts. I think you need to focus on something to get the satisfaction you’re craving. You still might not have found your favorite language/framework/project, so it’s fine to keep searching as well, but I would avoid going around in a circle spending a week barely scratching the surface of the same 5 skills in a cycle.
    2. You will never stop learning. You will get better, but there will always be something new to learn. Even if 90% of your code works “intentionally” as you say, there will still be 10% that you need to trial and error and stack overflow.