Learning to code without the internet
If you've read my previous article you'll know that I am teaching myself to code while deployed on an aircraft carrier. This poses a few problems:
- You can't connect my personal computer to the internet.
- There is no WiFi for any devices
- Computers are a commodity that you have to stand in line for
This lead me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out everything I needed to be able to teach myself without the aid of the web.
First, there are a few things that you will need to do to get started while you still have internet:
Download VS Code: code.visualstudio.com
You are going to love having this editor because it will help you format your code, tell you when there are problems with what you've written and it also has a built in dictionary sort of speak so that you can look up any syntax that you don't know. However, you are going to need Node to run your javascript code here is a link that shows you how.
developer.ibm.com/tutorials/learn-nodejs-in..
Don't get too overwhelmed. It's not as hard as you think, but you'll definitely be happy that you did.
Get good books:
I highly recommend the books by Jon Duckett on HTML/CSS and Javascript/Jquery. I recommend these because of the way that they are structured. They have lots of pictures and examples that you can copy into your editor for practice. They are also very user friendly. The only problem is that they do not come in ebook form.
I suggest working through these books from front to back until you have a pretty decent grasp on the languages. The HTML/CSS book you can run through fairly quickly.
Once you get through these I would also recommend getting Eloquent Javascript and work through it. Download the sandbox from the website onto your computer so that you have the answers for the exercises already. This will help because this book can destroy your brain.
Get projects:
jsbeginners.com/javascript-projects-for-beg..
I suggest that you print out a few project examples on Javascript and work through building things as you study the books this will keep you motivated by showing you that you're actually learning and not just reading and copying.
Get videos:
I would suggest getting a paid subscription to YouTube. You can then download YouTube videos and they will stay on your device for 30 days.
Download the CS50 course from Harvard. It's fantastic. Any Javascript projects for beginners are good too. I recommend anything from freeCodeCamp.
Once you have these things you will be ready to go. Start by building websites that are saved locally on your computer. Open a file for the main page and then have separate files within it for different pages within the site. Then practice style them. Then you can start messing with buttons and interaction through Javascript. If you have nice photos or videos on your computer you can add those as well.
I hope that this helps anyone that is in the situation that I was in (trying to straighten out the tangled knot that is tech advice). If anyone has anything to add please leave it in the comments.