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.
Books are always a good source. And they’re structured and teach stuff in the correct order. Something stackoverflow and the internet doesn’t do. So if you can find proper books on the programming languages and frameworks you’re interested in, I’d recommend to read those. And keep in mind there are libraries, if you don’t want to buy books and they’re not available online. Though, if it’s a niche topic, it’d have to be more a university library than a public one. It’s worth a try. Otherwise, you can always buy them. Just have a (quick) look at the content first, so it matches your interest and level of prior knowledge.
Wisdom that was shared with me: the first step to becoming a great coder is becoming a shitty coder.