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Start hacking. CodeFellows/Udacity/College is expensive. Hack: Figure out what they teach you, and find other, cheaper sources of the same information. (edit:

by jt2190 11y ago

Start hacking. CodeFellows/Udacity/College is expensive. Hack: Figure out what they teach you, and find other, cheaper sources of the same information. (edit: Check out Zed Shaw's stuff http://learnrubythehardway.org/book/ http://learnrubythehardway.org/book/ http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/) CodeFellows/Udacity/College says they teach you what you need to know to get a job. Hack: Ask employers directly what they look for when hiring. Learn that instead. I don't have experience/proof of skills. Hack: Start posting your work online. (Get a free blog or use GitHub or something.) Even if it's a tiny thing. Bit by bit, day by day, you'll be proving that you can ship something. When someone asks what you can do, show them the site. (edit: A shining example is Jennifer Dewalt's 180 Websites in 180 days: http://jenniferdewalt.com/ http://jenniferdewalt.com/) I don't know people who can help me. Hack: Find your local web development meetup and go. Don't sit in the corner. Meet people. Get their contact into. Tell them what you're trying to accomplish. Ask them for advice. (People love to give advice.) Email them later and let them know you enjoyed meeting them. Thank them for their advice. Build relationships.

taphangum 11y ago
This is fantastic advice. Pretty much exactly what I did to get to the point of being employable (when not working on my own ideas). Starting from a position pretty similar to the OP. The most important part of this is the emphasis on releasing code on a consistent basis. I'm 6 years into my journey and am still doing this pretty regularly. Example: https://github.com/Tapha/Custom-Highlight https://github.com/Tapha/Custom-Highlight - A simple, open source text highlighter that allows you to add custom functions to it. Like the Medium editor.

by jt2190 11y ago

taphangum 11y ago

This is fantastic advice. Pretty much exactly what I did to get to the point of being employable (when not working on my own ideas). Starting from a position pretty similar to the OP. The most important part of this is the emphasis on releasing code on a consistent basis. I'm 6 years into my journey and am still doing this pretty regularly. Example: https://github.com/Tapha/Custom-Highlight https://github.com/Tapha/Custom-Highlight - A simple, open source text highlighter that allows you to add custom functions to it. Like the Medium editor.