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.

  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 days ago

    What honestly made a big difference for me was 2 things:

    1. Working IRL for a while so I could see how projects can quickly turn into a mess as new requirements get added on
    2. Learning the SOLID principles and TDD.

    The solid principles are a great guide as a project gets large, but you can’t really appreciate them until you’ve worked on a project that is a mess.

    So this isn’t exactly practical advice for you, but it’s what helped me.