My Approach to Learning New Languages/Frameworks

Recently at my coding bootcamp we started studying JavaScript. The first 6 months of the bootcamp focus on learning Ruby, Object Oriented Programming, Sinatra and Ruby on Rails, in order to give us a solid foundation in full-stack development and the components involved without anything becoming too difficult. I have been fortunate enough to acquire an internship since starting my bootcamp and throughout the internship I have picked up a lot of JavaScript, to the point where I know feel very comfortable using this language. The 6 week JavaScript module at Flatiron has given me a chance to solidify my knowledge, but I have definitely had a large amount of free time, so I decided to take a look at learning how to setup a backend in JavaScript using Node.js, Express.js and MongoDB. In this post, I'm going to talk about how my approach differed due to the fact that I already understood MVC Architecture, how to query databases, set up routes and authentication.

At my internship, I learned by doing. I knew 0 JavaScript going in and after a month of doing basic HTML/CSS work they asked me to build them a carousel/slider using only Vanilla JS. It took me days of research to make it, but I did. And I learned a lot of JavaScript. I discovered that just giving yourself the task of building something is an incredible way to learn. When you have an end goal and the motivation to work towards it, you learn things that documentation and tutorials alone cannot always teach you. When it comes to learning Backend JS, my approach is exactly the same!

I started by bookmarking the documentation pages for Node.js, Express.js, EJS and MongoDB (all the tools I thought I would need to recreate the components of my full-stack Rails app) and bought a Traversy Media project based course. Since then I have been working through it and trying to add in features of my own, simply reading through documentation and searching on the internet when I need to fill in gaps in my knowledge.

My goal once I complete the course is to make a full-stack app using JavaScript such as a bug tracker, a system to keep track of your finances or maybe an e-commerce site. I know that by the end of my first full build I will have all the tools I need to succeed as a Backend JS developer. My internship has taught me that being able to research gaps in your knowledge and overcome problems/bugs is a huge part of being a developer. I look forward to updating you on my Backend JS journey and beyond to React.