I feel like I’m not getting enough material to actually learn what I’m doing. It’s as though I learn something once then I move on to the next thing without reinforcement. I feel like this site it just to get my feet wet, but I don’t know where to go after this. I mean I can read some Java, but when I taught myself HTML and CSS then to Bootstrap… I could build a site. I liked Freecodecamp a lot, but it’s limited in variety of code. I guess just keep going to another language then learn more advanced topics of Java independently and figure out how to apply it. If I had a test over Java, I could recognize some of those words. It just feels very much this is chapter one and then ok this is the exit door… good luck. There not much keeping me around besides learning some syntax. I wish there were more projects.
As with many circumstances where we are responsible for our own learning, it is up to us to put the time in to make sure we understand the material.
Much as a university student who only attends the lectures will likely do worse than one who also spends time studying the recommended textbooks or reading journals/research papers for example, we would not expect a learner who simply completes each exercise and then moves on to have the same grasp of the content as one who does the lesson and then takes the initiative to practice with what they’ve learned before moving on.
It’s a recurring theme here - you will get back what you put into learning the material, in terms of the time and effort you invest in educating yourself.
HTML and CSS have one clear, well defined application that is obvious - you use them to make web sites. In some ways, this limits them but it makes it much easier to say “this is what I’m learning this for”. You wouldn’t learn HTML if you wanted to understand the Linux kernel, for example.
Java - like every other programming language - is much less prescriptive in what you can do with it, because for any given programming language you can apply it to many different use cases. It may not be ideally suited to everything, but to an extent they are a case of “if you can imagine it, you can make it.”
The Pro career and skill paths are there to address this, to some extent. Taking Java as an example, there is a course on building Android apps using Java. We’re all pretty much glued to our phones these days, and who wouldn’t want to be in the position of potentially having their code running on 2.5 billion devices across the world?
The paths go beyond simply showing you the language, but also giving you an example area where you can apply that language.
If you are a Pro subscriber, there are projects along the way during the courses / paths to test your ability.
There are also challenge projects, which are meant to be a bit more difficult (hence the name), which you can find here:
