Get Past Code Tutorials - How to Start Making Your Own Programming Projects

are you stuck doing code tutorials like
i was i mean learning on rails is better
than nothing but we need to be careful
not to fall into the trap of not really
learning how to go off on our own
as an example I'm going to show you guys
the five easy steps that I took to get
to my first web application and I'm
gonna show you guys how I came up with
that idea and the steps that I took to
get to the point where I was actually
starting and I built the thing I found
that's the hardest part of getting off
of that tutorial track is to find an
idea that's easy enough for you to
venture off off into but not so hard
that you get so stuck that you just quit
so it's a delicate balance and this is
where you have to really know yourself
and weigh your skills stands and you
have to be honest with yourself so I'm
gonna show you guys the five steps now
and then you can watch the end of the
video and I'll really explain each step
in detail step one is coming up with an
idea to choose your stack as in your
technical snack three prep and learn
from the pros four build the thing step
5
like this video and subscribe to my
channel for occasional programming
videos so obviously these steps are for
beginners if you're a seasoned veteran
you still want to go this route it's
fine but really this is to help us get
off of that tutorial track thank you so
much for watching this video and I'm
gonna get into actually describing the
list so for step one coming up with the
idea you might be inclined to think of I
don't know ways to make money or
something like that but that's not the
way you want to go about it it's
probably the worst way you can come up
with an idea because that idea is
probably too grand right now and you'll
get caught up in thinking about like
monetizing the platform whenever you
haven't even built your own platform yet
and this is your first one and you're
really trying to you know get your way
there I really recommend that you go
about your regular routine for about a
week and just write down all the
problems or annoyances that you come up
with while using technology or the
internet or something for me my most
recent idea was that YouTube tag
research tool and that came about
because I was searching how to make best
youtube tag lists like best YouTube tag
list it was just really annoying to get
to the point where I could actually find
good tags to use and I figured that
other content creators we're having the
same issue so I decided to make my own
tool to find these tags and it's now my
video tagger
um I was just thinking these other tools
suck so much I how do I even use them
and that's when the light bulb went off
and I'm sure you can have many moments
like that too and the things that you do
in your daily life the step to choose
your tech stack so depending on what
you're making like a web app a static
web site or even a mobile app you need
to make a decision and stick with it
because your indecision could be the
death of your application and you can
always redo your application on other
platforms if you want if you start off
on mobile you can finish in the mobile
application actually finish it and then
use the same API for your web
application and there's a lot of
different technologies that you can use
and I'm sure in your learning that your
company you're coming across ones that
you like I I personally went with a full
stack JavaScript project for my first
one just because I wanted to use one
language on the front and the back end
that way I can master JavaScript and
really further my knowledge and
JavaScript and then because of that
programming as a whole once you've
decided what platform you want to be on
you can decide what languages you're
gonna use for to utilize that platform
to the fullest then you can decide what
framework you're gonna use on the front
end and what framework and you're gonna
use on the back end and if necessary you
can choose what database you're gonna
use as well and here is where you might
be thinking okay I'm kind of stuck now
how do I even comprehend all these
things and how first of all its
comprehend all these things but then I
also have to put them all together how
how am I gonna do that as a beginning
beginner programmer and that's where we
get to step 3
because tutorials are actually very
useful because they give you a shell to
work with it's not like you learn
something from a tutorial and you have
to memorize all of it and then you know
spit it out verbatim for your program
you can actually make the program so
that guides you along in in their
courses like on udemy or wherever else
you can take those programs after you've
made them and got them to use for your
own purposes so for example in my
situation I wanted to make a full stack
JavaScript application so that's an
Express server running on node
react front end so to prepare for the
project all I did was type in the udemy
those exact things like a first of all I
just actually just typed in full stack
JavaScript web application and a couple
courses popped up and I chose to pick up
both of them the first one I picked up
was Andrew means an old course and
Stephan Grider's full stack react course
both these courses were great at
teaching me what I needed to know and
explaining in really good detail about
the concepts that they taught me they
gave me a skeleton to work with
after I finished so for step four this
building thing I basically just copy and
pasted my Steven Reiter course
application and I got it it completely
new routes new functions new endpoints
so pretty much the only thing though
similar was I used a lot of the same
libraries I some of the same imports
just in general Express Mongoose you
know a lot of things that most
JavaScript full stagger applications use
and it's not like I'm gonna be
copyrighted for using the similar
combination of libraries you know what I
mean you might be frowning because you
heard the phrase copy and paste but how
can I expect to be able to build
something from scratch if I can't even
do it from boilerplate that's like
asking someone to build a house when
they've never even you know renovated a
house before
right so this is how I'm transitioning
from doing tutorials to actual projects
on my own if you think this video helped
please like and subscribe to support me
and my channel and if you have anything
to say about your experience about
moving from tutorials to your own
projects please let me know in the
comments and I'll see if I learned
something from you guys
alright disco pony out peace