I started with Web development in April 2020. As someone who had some really basic knowledge about the web, I searched google, reddit and some other online forums for "how to get started with web development". Most result included paid courses on udemy or coursera.
So, assuming what most people say is true(how naive), I started looking for the "most popular" courses on udemy. Eventually I found one which had the most positive reviews. I felt like, this is it. This course will take me from zero to hero in just 30-40 hours. (Spoiler alert: I was dead wrong)
I started watching these videos, following along each step. Basically I was getting spoon fed. And I liked it at that time because I had to do minimal effort by my side(and still be in my comfort zone). I finished the course in a month or so, the feeling was wonderfull, I felt I was ready to take on the world, make some kick-ass projects, until I sat down and struggled to make even a basic website(not that basic).
At this point, I blamed myself. Thinking that I'm not even capable of making websites, I should leave web-development. But I was determined to make it through, so I started googling for more resources on web-development until I found The Odin Project.
I restarted my web-dev journey through The Odin Project. And honestly, It's one of the best resources to learn web development on the Internet. I can now say I'm a full-stack developer because of Odin 🙏🏻
Here are the things I liked and found interesting about it:
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They assume that you don't have any prior programming experience. They start with teaching you the basics of programming(If you feel like you know this stuff, you can just skim over the lessons).
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They have two paths for back-end development, Ruby(with Ruby On Rails) and NodeJS. You can decide to follow one of the path(or maybe follow both one after the other) as per your need.
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Project based learning. Each lesson is followed by a project which solidifies your understanding.(This definitely made me love The Odin Project).
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Projects are hard. Not gonna lie, these projects are really hard but definitely worth it. Also, almost all the projects can be put in your resume.
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The project lessons have a list of submitted projects, so you can see what other people made(and learn from their code).
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Each lesson has text content followed by some links to video contents. With things like udemy, every content is inside a video but TOP(The Odin Project) has mostly text content as in case of a mistake, text content can be updated more easily as compared to recording another video.
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I like that they encourage you to read the docs, which is definitely something one has to get used to in real life.
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Each lesson provides you with additional contents if you wanna know more about a certain topics. It doesn't feel like they have "trapped" you in their own ecosystem. I can't say this about other courses.
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They are realistic with you from the start. They don't give you false hope that you will become a web-development master overnight.
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The Community, especially their discord server is something you definitely don't wanna miss out. They have a lot of people helping each other with the curriculum.
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It's free, and their curriculum is Open-source, which is definitely a plus point as anybody can provide suggestions to make the curriculum better(They have more that 5,000 contributors).
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The curriculum is frequently updated with the latest and required technologies so you don't have to worry about the contents being outdated.
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They encourage good behaviours such as googling before asking(which I think most beginners lack), how to ask questions, etc. which you definitely need to have out there on the world. So, It's good to have these behaviours encouraged from the beginning.
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They encourage you to get out of your comfort zone. As the more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you learn.
These are the reasons why I love The Odin Project and encourage everyone who wants to learn web-development to learn through The Odin Project.
If you are interested, check out The Odin Project yourself -> https://www.theodinproject.com/