What Kind of Developer Am I?
Before knowing what all have been the online-tools which have helped me in self-improving as a developer. You all should know what Kind of developer I am. So There are different types of developers in our planet, and if we name them one by one, itself could be a universe. Few names would be Blockchain Developer, Full-Stack Developer, Machine Learning Developer etc.
So I primarily belong to the category of FrontEnd Developer, which itself is a sub-category of the so-called Full-Stack developers, and since I am a huge fan of Spider-Man I mostly work on the applications of the web.
So, I think you have got the point!. Yes, I am a FrontEnd Developer.
Most Helpful Online Tools which helped me self-improve.
To be frank, I don't know whether the tools which I will be discussing below are tools. I would like to call them platforms, than mere tools. But I am sure about one thing they did help me self-improve as a front-end developer.
BootStrap
So, as mentioned earlier. I am a frontend developer. During my initial stage of improvement, I hated CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) because I couldn't do it (code it). During that period of my improvement, BootStrap was the tool or platform which gave me the confidence to make workable User Interfaces. Even though I didn't write any CSS Code then. This tool called Bootstrap with all its pre-made widgets and components made me believe that I will be able to code CSS somewhere in the future, and then it was a true magic for me.
And Now, when typing this blog, I develop somewhat the user interfaces for my frontend side projects with just CSS.
10 Fast Fingers
So, Yes this one of the tools which I have been using for the past 2 years, and it has helped me to self-improve as a developer in more of an indirect way. Before I started using this tool just like any normal person, I had to look into the keyboard for each of the keys and press them individually. Now after two years of continuous efforts the result as well as the improvement I went thought is quite drastic. My Typing speed now peaks at 120WPM from 30WPM.
Online Learning Platforms.
There are many online platforms which helped to grow myself as a developer. Just like any other so called self-learnt developer, my journey or exploration started in the year 2020 due to the recommendation of YouTube. For the next few months, I purely depended on these free videos to develop myself. I got to learn from English Tutorials as well as from tutorials which are in my regional language.
Next platform which helped me a lot was an online learning site called learncodeonilne. This was a place where I tried to learn several things by watching several quality videos, but for my bad luck at the end, none of they worked out well for me.
Ya, I hear those yells of you guys. Yes, I also have several uncompleted yet bought course there at Udemy, Coursea and the list goes on.
Online Communities
Since I started my exploration during the time of corona. There weren't much thing going on in outside world. Just like any other normal person, I was also limited within the four walls of my room physical. But mentally I visited all over the country by connecting with various people across the nation through social media like LinkedIn, Instagram, TinkerHub and GTech Mulearn.
Ha, Wondering what TinkerHub and GTech Mulearn are, these are communities which I was about to mention. Even though LinkedIn gave me connection and Instagram gave me followers. The only place where I could find like-minded people, no they are people, they are something more than that. Friends? Family?. I don't know, but all those guys I found here are quite special in all means.
These like-minded friends of mine were my inspiration for my journey until now, and all these friends have played a key role in allowing me self-improve myself as a developer. They showed me learning paths, gave me solutions and much more valuable connection and opportunities. I could go, typing about them for kilometres and kilometres. I think that could be a content for another blog of mine.
One Last Paragraph.
For writing this paragraph of the blog I had to think a lot because, when I first thought about the tools which help me self-improve as a developer, I couldn't find any proper tools. The first few names which came into my mind were YouTube, Spotify, Stack Overflow etc. And the main confusion was that I couldn't conclude whether they were tools!. Why?
Because my tools aren't your tools. As I mentioned in my first blog, my views are quite different, and therefore this confusion also is different.