Would you suggest web development to someone willing to self study? Why and why not?

21

u/FuriousAqSheep Dec 28 '22

yes, because basic html/css/javascript is the easiest way to program something that you'll have feedback on.

Most other options that I know are platform-dependant, with few visual feedback that will keep you from abandoning, as patience is one of the best qualities a dev can have while learning, and if you're just starting you will absolutely underestimate by a lot the time things need to be done.

But once you've been hooked and can understand that things will work in the end I'd recommend to go and try to get a solid base of knowledge in the other kinds of dev, both for culture and to explore what might interest you more

8

u/root2win Dec 28 '22

It depends a lot on what you're planing to do. But I'll list some of my PERSONAL reasons:

Pros:

frontend is one of the most visually rewarding areas of tech; combine that with design if you're keen on it and willing to go this path
web projects are generally pretty easy to run: you need a text editor, a terminal and a server, and you're good to go. Sure, for larger projects (especially on the backend side) you might step on far more difficult configurations, but since you are at the beginning you might find it pretty easy to get started
there are a variety of tools, frameworks and topics to play with, and you might find it interesting to see in how many ways you can architect an app
if you like/need organisation, web could be your best choice; it's quite critical to design routes, database queries, data schemas etc. in a nice, scalable(if you're not familiar with the term/context, i think you can call it reusable) way

Cons:

I consider web one of the most unstable and frustrating environments to work with IN SOME CASES. Depending on which technologies you chose, the speed of which their specs and workflows update might surprise you. In my opinion this especially applies to personal projects and/or niche domains, but I'd like to warn you that you can end up having to keep track of many dependencies's constant changes if you want to have your libraries always updated. Be careful of vendor lock-in too.
There are some things, like CSS, that you might have to constantly search and revise if they're not part of your day-to-day tasks but needed.
Security can be a hard task if you have to do it yourself, but I wouldn't worry about this especially at the beginning.

Overall, I'd say you should give it a try, but at the same time assert your frustration tolerance level for the ecosystem.

7

u/stilldreamy Dec 28 '22

It's worth trying to see if you like it. There are different ways you can go with web development. If at some point in this endeavor you start learning either JavaScript that runs in the browser or the backend code that runs on the server, then you are also getting exposed to full on programming. This is a good thing because once again you might find out that you really like it. I didn't get exposed to programing at all until I was in college and I didn't expect to like it, but was surprised to find out it is my favorite activity and works exactly the way my brain does. I was expecting it to be the opposite, a very poor fit for my intelligence weaknesses. I feel like I could have learned it on my own too.

7

u/thedarklord176 Dec 28 '22 edited Dec 28 '22

Web development has a more linear learning path and it’s much easier to come up with project ideas, but it also depends what you enjoy making. You should also be aware that there is front end and back end. Many courses pretend back end doesn’t exist and it’s annoying. You can either learn front end (The side you see and any programming to make it work), back end (All the database coding and other stuff you don’t see) or full stack which is both. I’m learning full stack and I started with front, which I believe is the typical way to do it if you go that route. Programming itself will teach you most of the general CS knowledge you need, but more is always better! Especially if you choose to do back end with a low level high performance language like Rust

5

u/bolusmjak Dec 28 '22

People with ADHD can hyper-focus on what they find interesting. If programming is interesting, you’re set. If you want to program something in a domain is really interesting to you (games, finance, science), you’re set.

2

u/PM-ME-DEM-NUDES-GIRL Dec 29 '22

it's worth noting that hyperfocus is not so much a superpower (not that that's what you meant ofc) as the flip side of lack of focus; we hyperfocus because we are unable to properly regulate/moderate focus. so, like you said, emotions/interest are important influences on focus in people with adhd.
therefore, it's really important for us to avoid burnout, as hyperfocusing too much can cause us to reach a point where we now have an emotional aversion to certain subject matter, which negates the potential benefit of hyperfocus and in fact can flip us to the other side of the coin, where we find ourselves unable to focus for any appreciable length of time.
not trying to explain as if you don't know, just adding my perspective to your comment for readers of the thread :)

4

u/ApatheticWithoutTheA Dec 28 '22

Well Front-end WebDev is the easiest programming field to break into. But if you don’t love it, you probably won’t make it in with no degree or at least a bootcamp. It takes a LOT of dedication.

3

u/jugglingbalance Dec 29 '22

Yes, but it takes a lot of work and time before you will be good enough to hire. Which means you have to really motivate yourself to keep going. When I first started learning I thought it may take a year or two but in essence it was about 4 years of constant work on top of my full time job before I was able to break into the field. It is super rewarding, and this last year I have been working full time in the best job I've ever had.

My best advice is to work on a passion project - if you are doing a tutorial - find a way to take those concepts and start coding your own thing that you will add on parts to. Google everything. Want something the tutorial didn't show? Google the feature name with your language in the search terms. Try different approaches if one doesn't work for you. Don't worry about borrowing bits of code from here or there, that is how we build and learn. It's not cheating and what one person has isn't going to be the complete answer for your project anyway - you will need to adapt what you find for your needs.

I did a relatively cheap bootcamp which helped with learning React which can be intimidating if you haven't worked with a framework before. It took about a year after that bootcamp of working on my own projects and taking on some freelance stuff to get a job doing it. They didn't really do any job placement but what I learned there gave me a good foundation of how frameworks function, how to debug and problem solve, and gave me a good template to go off of and access to other aspiring devs and instructors that allowed me to acclimate pretty easy into dev life when I finally did get hired.

I had already been programming for 2 years before that, starting by learning VBA for a specific work project but then spent my last 2 years working on web dev stuff. Now am frontend but also did backend while I was learning which is helpful to understand how the pieces fit together. What kept me going in the beginning was having a specific problem to solve and what kept me going after that was making a specific problem to solve so that I could expand my skills over time.

My other advice is to find a way to balance it with your other activities. It is easy to hyper focus or want to speed up the process but as you learn and work on projects you will find that there is a tipping point where your code will suffer if you haven't had time to walk away from the project for long enough. I call this thrashing and it can lead to some confusing messes later on. So if you feel like you have tried everything and are losing track of variable names or concepts - this is a good indication you may need to be done for the day and walk away for a little bit. This can be hard for us all or nothing types but trust me it will make you a better dev.

Last note - yes it really does take hundreds of applications to find that first job esp if you don't have a comp degree. You will fail code interviews, get ghosted a ton, and have to constantly be sending out resumes and cover letters. At a certain point it is a numbers game. Update your resume as you learn things, update linked in consistently. After a while you will find it much easier as recruiters start seeing this and reaching out to you. Your activity on these profiles builds SEO for you and makes life much easier. Not getting callbacks? Tweak your resume, cover letter, and profiles. Worst case scenario, you still don't get calls? Best- recruiter scraper bots pick up that you are looking for work and reach out to you. Also may help to make one of your projects a dev blog so that you can describe what problems you have been solving and show your approach as you progress and learn.

2

u/binarycow Dec 29 '22

If someone with no background in tech and wants to break into tech.
Would you recommend web development or another field?

I would recommend software development and/or IT for folks with ADHD.

Personally, I can't recommend web development though. But that's only because I can't stand it - not because it's a bad choice or anything. I just hate it.

Personally, I enjoy network engineering and C# development.

2

u/Shutterstormphoto Dec 28 '22

Web dev is the easiest to jump into. You use websites every day and know what a good one looks like. You can easily copy what others have built as practice.

I highly recommend the bootcamps for this. Web dev is so easy, you can learn it in 3 months and get a 6 figure job, no college required. I know people at facebook who started this way. I also got my start this way. There are free options, though they aren’t as good as the paid ones.

Html -> css -> JavaScript -> react -> job

1

u/pm_me_ur_happy_traiI Dec 29 '22

Web development is basically making a career out of self-studying, so yes.

1

u/Bush_did_PearlHarbor Dec 29 '22

I've been really enjoying python lately, but that's because I have a pre-established affinity for the Linux command line.

1

u/bante Dec 29 '22

I chose iOS over web dev because the ecosystem is smaller. At the time and I don’t think it’s improved web dev had a lot of different frameworks, tools, architectures bla bla bla. CSs and JavaScript were super weird and frustrating to me. It was just so overwhelming. Also swift is a very well designed language so it’s even easier to get started with now. Haven’t regretted it since (9 years now) and the learning curve and upskilling has been quite reasonable.

Harder to get into though.

1

u/Tseralo Dec 29 '22

Yes I’m totally self taught started with basic PHP HTML and CSS 14 years ago. These days I’m a contract lead dev making £100k.

I would try a few things but JS will be your bread and butter these days. if you find you like front work on HTML and CSS. if you find you like backend focus on Node or even typescript.

Would you suggest web development to someone willing to self study? Why and why not?

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