Ummm, well this post is quite outlandish as I usually don’t write such posts but sudden events compelled me to give it a thought.

Well, many of my peers/ juniors ask me that from where should they learn technologies, or which courses to buy or follow to learn development i.e. making real-time projects (I’ll narrow it down to software projects here). So I want to share what I feel is the correct way of starting/learning technology so that the person is able to build stuff!!

My answer is Just begin building stuff!!

Well, this might sound absurd that how can one start making projects before they know anything. But as Robert Downey Jr. in and as Iron Man said, “Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk!!!” that makes perfect sense. I am not saying that you don’t need to learn anything and just start with building stuff. But following a particular course will end you up nowhere (my opinion). I am saying just be familiar(not proficient) with the technology you want to use and just let your creative juices flowing through your nerves.

For example, if I start Web Development I’ll say just learn the basic tags in HTML used, the basic syntax of CSS and JS; and start designing one page. Following a particular course will just make you come across one problem and one solution. But when you’ll build stuff on your own you’ll encounter problems to which when you try to Google a solution you will not only get that one but also various other similar problems and their solutions as well which will give you experience. And then you’ll be able to build stuff and in no time you’ll look up to yourself and you will realize you actually walked up the ladder from being naive to being proficient. It’s just like that, if you wanna learn how to drive a car you will not learn about how it works or how to control it in traffic beforehand; you’ll just be familiar with the controls and you’re good to go and will get hold while actually driving!!!

Secondly, most important though if you want to build stuff; ready to encounter problems to which the solutions might be intimidating or there might be the case when one prescribed solution doesn’t work and you have to try multiple solutions but you don’t have to lose patience. Again quoting Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness said, “If you’ll give me a problem and I don’t know the answer I’ll say that I don’t, but I know how to find the answer and I will find it”. This is the same attitude which I guess one should inculcate in themselves while developing things.

So wrapping up the post, I just want to say that if you want to build things just get yourself familiar with basic tools and start building. No prescribed course or no perfect path will lead you to get hold of things everyone has their own way of learning and grasping things which one should explore themselves. There are two sources which I’ll suggest (as far as computers are concerned) from where you should begin learning are:- Google and StackOverflow. And the last but the most necessary ingredient to get going on the hard way and that is patience!!!!