From standing for long hours in front of a stove to sitting down for long hours in front of a computer, two completely different worlds that might be somewhat similar.
Hard work, coping with stress, and helping others to understand new things are just a few similarities.
Back then using windows, spreadsheets, docs and you know the ‘normal stuff’ was part of my activities. There was a lot of thinking involved in taking a new road, been a web developer was not really in my mind. After sometimes going back and forth I remember watching my first YouTube tutorial about “Coding”. It was a ‘Hello World!’ tutorial in a text editor.
That’s when it hit me, the first problem.
The tutorial had a very different display than mine, even though I followed every single step. Now that I think about it, it was frustrating, and felt like giving up on my first attempt. There are a lot of steps that tutorials skip and don’t explain, for some reason it is expected that you know them even if the title says, beginners.
Now after thinking about it would have been nice to find a simple explanation like “A text editor is something like Notepad for Windows”.
For some reason, the thought of breaking my computer would appear from time to time, and it would make me feel anxious.
Nowadays the breaking part is not so much for my computer but for my code, a comma in the wrong place or a misplaced value might give you a hard time if you don’t spot it.
Sometime after my first tutorial and hours of many more, I felt prepared. This time the text editor (VSC) was understood, I was not going to give up so easily. Right from the beginning, I knew that it was going to be challenging, I didn’t have any previous knowledge and I have to admit that I was not that young anymore. However, I believe we learn more from our failures than from success.
Part of all the process in learning is reading documentation, this will always be a great part, now that my knowledge has greatly increased, the phrase: “Never stop learning” makes more sense.
I did manage to ‘Hello World!’ on the text editor. I learned a few things about HTML (pic 1). At the time shortcuts and plugins were nowhere close to my sight. To this day VSC is my text editor by default, and I can say it was so simple “! “
Understanding Git
Learning online was about documentation and watching tutorials. Github was very important according to most articles. However there were some parts, that just didn’t make any sense. The trickiest part for me to understand was the ‘branches’. Every time it was mentioned, my mind would always picture the folder icons from Windows Explorer and every time a repo was shown I could not see any, at least not what I imagined.
After fail and error I understood that a branch is a new safe version of your work from the point where it was created. It is a simple explanation, and there is a lot more to it but it would have more than enough to understand.
It’s been quite a journey, it is impossible to calculate the number of times Ubuntu was reinstalled after I messed it up. Luckily enough the internet is a great place and I found ‘TimeShift’, a backup system files app, it’s a life-changer. The thought of giving up would pop every time there were difficulties. “Am I up for it? Am I wasting my life?”
And Yes, I know that this life path is still very long and the same self-questioning will appear when things get rough. But I never felt so confident as I am right now when I remind myself that “Nothing is impossible”, now I can truly say I believe it.