While reading about the code behind the cryptocurrencies and hearing how some (and not all) existing programs and other problems could benefit from a decentralized solution, I got curious in learning more about the coding aspect of the decentralized technologies.
Terms such as Web3, Solidity, Ethereum Smart Contracts... Those overwhelm me. Every new knowledge can be overwhelming. Prior to university, I would try exploring various topics in the coding world, but since I got onto the university track, I felt comfortable with what was being taught and I stopped exploring outside the curriculum. And that felt scary: the fact that I am losing my curiosity.
So I hopped onto the internet and started googling. Clueless as in where to start, I decided to just choose something that seemed at least somewhat legitimate and throw myself at it. Ethereum's official page seemed to have a nice collection of resources for developers. And that's where I discovered _buildspace, and found their course Build a Web3 App with Solidity + Ethereum Smart Contracts.
I somewhat understand conceptually what smart contracts are. I know that Solidity resembles other programming languages. I am aware that Ethereum is one of the more popular coins. And I know that whenever one of the three mentioned terms shows up, the term "Web3" can be found somewhere near.
But I find myself too often trying to overprepare and then I don't end up doing anything, so I told myself that I won't waste time. No picking the perfect course for the next two weeks. Just start. The mentioned _buildspace course suggested taking JavaScript and Reactor warm up courses so that's what I set as my first 2 steps of the journey, turning it into the following plan for building my first Web3 App:
Three years ago, I learned some JavaScript in university. Back then I made a little web checkers game which you could play from multiple computers on the same network. It was a fun experience, but it is so easy to forget what you learned. Thankfully, with the first step of my plan I picked up the essentials real quick. And Scrimba provides a really nice and simple environment to learn in. I remember being blown away by Codecademy around 2014. Scrimba is not necessarily better, but the approach to the interface is revolutionary.
It took me about 3 weeks to finish what is meant to be the shortest step and should be doable in 4 hours. At that rate, I should be done with step 2 which takes 11 hours in about 8 weeks. Doesn't matter.
Onto Step 2! Learning React at Scrimba!