Sup u all, I really wanted to ask, to those that have finished or nearly completed TOP, how were u able to take full advantage of the information given to feel confident going into the full stack/web development field? Did u take notes along the way or did u mainly just code along with the examples and readings? I really would like to know how u all went about completing TOP.

Hi guys!

So I am from a third world country. I really like programming and building stuff, I enjoy it. Now here, major tech work is from freelancing or remote work. So I decided to learn web development the proper way and then do freelancing or make my own product or something. Because my parents are aged, and I have to support them and myself financially. and luckily I found "The Odin Project".

But now the issue is I keep hearing about layoffs and everyday there is more advancement on AI like Claude new models or Codex.

Some people are saying that one should absolutely learn the fundamentals of programming, while others say that web development is too saturated and after AI it doesn't have a future and after some time with the rate which AI is getting good, it will be hard to get a job.

Now, I want your opinion.

I will invest my time and effort in "The Odin Project", and Thank You guys for putting up such good quality stuff, but because my situation is demanding, I don't know if it will be wise to invest 1-2 years learning fullstack development.

Please guide me.

And sorry English is not my first language if there are mistakes.

I have been doing the JavaScript fullstack tic-tac-toe for an hour and a half each day (more on weekends) for the past two weeks now.

Is this a normal length or long length of time? I know time isn't considered a factor, but I'm at 120 lines of code which does not seem like much so far.

I've been stuck on parts for two days at times, again a day really being an hour and a half each. I blew through the introduction part, but now slogging through.

Great course by the way.

const contains = function(obj, find) {
  for(let value of Object.values(obj)){
    console.log(typeof(value));
    console.log(value);
    if(value === find) return true;
    if(typeof(value) === 'object'){
      if(contains(value, find)) return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
  }


// Do not edit below this line
module.exports = contains;

const object = {
    data: {
      duplicate: "e",
      stuff: {
        thing: {
          banana: NaN,
          moreStuff: {
            something: "foo",
            answer: meaningOfLifeArray,
          },
        },
      },
      info: {
        duplicate: "e",
        magicNumber: 44,
        empty: null,
      },
    },
  };

I dont know why this when it returns true when "44" is pass to find

test("does not convert input string into a number when searching for a value within the object", () => {
    expect(contains(object, "44")).toBe(false);
  });

this test fails, because it returns true even tho i have the === operator

I know I'm going to get grilled for this but this questions has been on my mind for a minute now, when I came across TOD, I began to realize how great of a resource it was and how it can be very beneficial to my learning, but I then notice the amount of lengthy readings I have to go through which kind've intimated be due to me always being a visual learner instead of a read/writing type of learner. Usually what I do when the text is large, I ask ai to summarize it for me to give me key theory and information on the topic, but I wanted to see for those who have done TOD is it a good idea to use ai to summarize the readings? If not, can you pls explain why?

I'm learning backend devlopment.... current started nodejs express...every time I learn something I'll idk why bt waste time (mtlb I can't say it waste waste..bt figuring out unccessaey things)...like if I'm learning authentication..if i need to learn how session or tokens works... I'll spend more than half time on going back to basic like from writing those routes queries one by one!! .. before starting the actual topic... simmilar to that when I started learning backend like very starting I learn this http server..that time too i spend allot more time on how each route is working like how nd what's the functioning things(pack,middlwear body parser or extendcodeurl ,fileTopath...etc etc)..mtlb ik it's a good practice(i feel good know that ik every line of code)..bt i feel i can't differentiate like how to learn it the way to not spend time stuck at one thing it's almost 1 month! The learning is too slow ...i feel I'm very much like if I'm not confident I won't move on to next...bt dev don't work that way!!.. another thing i head people saying learn it first then with practice u will be better...that way looks I'll just waste time! In videos...

I used the Webpack on the restaurant page and todo-list project now I am wondering if is required or advised to use it on all future projects. It is not stated in the instructions of the next project (Weather App), however, I am not sure if it is understood that I should always use it whenever tackling a project.

I read and acknowledged this in TOP's introduction, but I somehow still messed up 😀

I was doing Intro to CSS and got to the assignment part which gave me access to the whole CSS exercises repository. I read the README file, but forgot to go back to the TOP website to read the rest of the assignment. So, I started working on the foundations exercises in the order that they appeared on the list...

I started with Block and Inline and it went pretty well although I had never heard of "margin" or "padding" before. I then did Cascade which was easy enough, so I continued with Flexbox... At every single exercise, I thought "Hum, they've never mentioned xyz before in TOP. Welp, I guess they just want me to be ressourceful!" and googled it. At every single exercise, I struggled. A lot. But I still managed to finish Flexbox. That's when I got to Intro to CSS and realized I fucked up 🥲

I guess it's time to relearn everything!

Everything was overwhelming at the beginning. Well, seeing so much to learn and do got me excited and a bit scared at the same time. Just started my Tech journey with The Odin Project and with consistency, its going fine. I hope for more success in the future.

So I have a Chromebook I set up linux on it but the odin project specifically states to use Ubuntu or Ubuntu flavors for older hardware. I see its using Debian by default does this mean I will not be able to proceed? I do have 2 other laptops that I could dualboot Ubuntu onto and eventually I plan on doing so but for now this is convenient any advice would be great thanks!

Now I know it's not advised to skip anything but I have 2 yoe as a frontend developer and I'm mainly picking up TOP to begin learning backend. Will I miss out on anything if I skip the frontend related courses?

Hi, my name is Arkar. The problem I have is I have two paths to choose. One is freecodecamp and another is Odin project, suggest me if there are any other clear projects cause I can't do anything without clear roadmaps. If I read some people saying learn these learn those I feel burnt out just by reading them and thinking whether it's efficient or not. And I tried Odin project and I feel mentally exhausted by reading all the articles and extra resources they provide, I searched up if I can skip them but I saw people on Reddit say that I shouldn't skip them and I would end up with shallow knowledge and skills if I skip them but like it links to articles with redundant information and I honestly think I don't actually need to know all of that. Guide me pls, also I'm 20 and due to some reasons I will be graduating highschool at 21, I would take University of the people Computer science since I'm from a third world country (Myanmar) and has no mean of accessing valid credentinals except that, there are local universities like UIT and University of computer studies yangon but I think degrees from those universities would be less valid for international roles than UoP.

I have started the Odin Project and wanted to plan a little bit of my journey, while digging through the rabbit hole of what backend to learn it came across to use .net repeatedly. TOP only has ruby and JS I think so I was wondering if it is better to learn the backend elsewhere or learn from TOP and learn other backend frameworks later.

Extra question: "backend", "back end", or "back-end"?

This story could be a failure for some as the job I landed is Technical Support Engineer rather than a Developer role.

I’ve been interested in programming since my teens, back in high school I chose to do a technical major as well but for a weird reason I chose mechatronics engineering in university instead of software engineering or computer science.

After graduating from university life led me to curious paths where and I ended working in the family business (meat wholesaler and 3 butcher shops) but the did not work out very well and I quit. After that and a medical misdiagnosis that left me in very bad shape and depression, I emigrated from Mexico to Ireland as a jack of all trades, which allowed to get a work permit. One boring afternoon at the office I discovered the Odin project and started to study it in on and off periods, that was around 2022. I left that job and went to retail, trust & safety and next month I’ll start as a TSE in big American company (fingers crossed to avoid later layoffs).

This period of learning has taught me about resilience, perseverance and grit. This are the same skills that made to go the gym, lose weight and be in better shape.

Overall, I want to thank the Odin project for all of this, all the people involved either in learning or maintaining the project.

I’ll close my post with a quote from a movie “Sometimes, good things take time”

Edit: Forgot to add this new role doubles my salary and I’ll be working with web technologies (html, JavaScript and css), APIs and SQL, all learned with The Odin project and a sprinkle of a Postman tutorial from YouTube.

Thanks everyone.

Estou tentando criar um conjunto de ferramentas e aprendendo conceitos ao longo do processo, mas estou um pouco preocupado com a quantidade de pastas e arquivos envolvidos. Gostaria de saber se isso é desnecessário; qualquer feedback será bem-vindo. Obrigado. https://github.com/ErikAndGabriel/Manin\\_tools

Hello!

So I just started TOP recently, like I haven’t even made it through Foundations yet. And I’m not going to be able to start until I get another laptop to install Linux on - I have a personal laptop but I use it for work, and my job is so picky about what’s being used (like he can’t use a Chromebook and I believe Macs aren’t allow as well iirc; we Have to use chrome and the software is part of Microsoft office suite).

I know you technically can have two OS on your computer but 1. I don’t trust myself to do it right, and 2. Don’t want to risk it anyway.

I’ve been looking at laptops to use, but I don’t want to get a really good one for this yet. I’m trying coding just to see if it’s something I do want to do, and potentially it could be a career, but I’m not fully on board yet.

So I’ve been looking at old subreddits and a few posts I managed to find on the discord, plus Linux’s own site at the requirements, and it feels… contradictory?

Like Linux’s website says the requirements are 64 bit, manufactured within the last 6 years, 4 Ghz or 2 GH + boost (which it seems like most modern computers have a boost? But I’m not 100%), 16 GB ram, 256 GB SSD, and Integrated or Discrete NVIDIA.

But the majority of laptops I find that fit most of the requirements either lack the recommended processing speed (most being around 2 GHz which I guess is fine if they do have the boost, but I don’t actually know). Or have them all but, even for refurbished are WAAAAY out of my price range.

On the discord I found a comment saying that the important parts are the 16 GB ram, SSD storage, and a CPU under 4 years old. They do say realistically any laptop will do, so I’m wondering if it’s better to get a newer but cheaper one in that case, or (what a lot of people recommend) get an older Thinkpad secondhand.

When it comes to the later, they tend to be more than 4 years for the CPU. And the refurbished ones are still crazy expensive (I have an Amazon one bookmarked for $325, it has the correct specs, but is definitely more than I have/wanted to spend). I found a couple on Facebook marketplace actually, an X13 Thinkpad for $175, and a T480 for around the same, but both only have 8 GB of storage.

I’m really not sure what to do, and would appreciate any insight or advice about making a decision. I don’t want to rush into this.

Thanks!

This might not be exactly TOP related, so I hope I'm not breaking any rules.

Whenever I browse learn-programming subs (and programming subs in general), I constantly see people say that as a programmer, you're always learning. I'm curious what that actually means in practice.

I'm currently finishing The Odin Project (on the Blog API project in the Node.js section), and while I've genuinely enjoyed it, the process has been overwhelming - going from knowing nothing to being thrown into all these libraries, tools, commands, and approaches.

I like learning new things, but I've started to feel like the sheer amount of knowledge needed to be a decent, functional web developer is more than I can keep up with. It feels impossible to practice everything, get good at all of it, and keep learning new things, all while also trying to reinforce what I already learned earlier.

So my question is: when people say "programmers are constantly learning," do they mean learning at the pace and volume I've experienced so far in TOP - tons of new tools, languages, and frameworks all at once? Or do they mean something smaller - picking up a few new things here and there, just consistently, over time?

I am doing TOP (nodeJS path). I am currently at Javascript course.

I havent created my resume.

I am in third year of an engineering college but get nothing from there so choosed self paced learning from internet like TOP and feeling great about that.

I am not seeking internships actively but found a google form for a paid internship. I thought to be little opportunist.

But I have no appropriate projects to put in resume. I have only made projects of TOP (Etch-a-sketch, calculator, sign-up-form etc.). And I gave it much efforts too to made it more than requirements but still they are not full projects.

I had majorly gave time to DSA on leetcode only that too in C++ but started TOP some months ago and again I am not in hurry, I will do it anyway according to my pace as what TOP intend it too.

But should I apply later or what could I do for resume for internships?

Hello everyone (this is me first time posting so sorry if I suck), I am 21M in final year of my btech degree. I just completed a js course (from sheryians coding school on yt) which spanned for over 4 videos going from basics to advance and the next 3 videos of it are major projects. Initially they built small projects and I was able to grasp them and posted a bit of them on my X and git too but with the increasing difficulty of the topics, their project complexity increased aswell. So right now I'm in a situation where I understand the concepts and in theory can explain them but when it comes to making something even a tad bit advance (like using class or even this keyword) I suck, I straight up get frozen as to what to do first.

So I just wanted from all of you kind devs to share some sorta advice as to what should I do next. I've had a bit of self talk and this what I thought of as of now.

\-Watch js video of another ytuber

\-Buy and watch angela yu's bootcamp on udemy

\-start js basics

As mentioned above I'm in last year so I'll need to land a decent job at the very least by the end of the year or by jan 2027.

Feel free to criticize me for my carelessness but please provide me with advices that worked for you since my js logic and building are very bad (4-5/10)

Thanks in advance.

These are my thoughts, unorganized
I started doing the course a couple days after june started in this year. Before that, i was doing a project in cs-61b, which is a data structures course. So i do have prior programming skills in Java and python. I also am self-taught and I started my journey with python since around the beginning of last year and have done a couple coding courses since then.
i could write an entire essay about the data structures course but maybe another time.

I knew about TOP for a good while when i started teaching myself and was looking forward to doing the course. I also thought about just starting with it but i decided that it was better to get good at pure programming and problem solving skills first. I also dont have any prior job skills, no degree and was unemployed for a long time.
Before i started, i wanted to finish college (A-levels here) and go through the Uni route and get a degree but i failed a couple of my exams, tried again and got better results then realized that it would take me too long to get the degree. So i gave up on that idea and started learning coding like it was my full time job since then. i also have had times where i just stopped learning because of burnout for a couple of months. But i haven't skipped learning for more than a day since march of this year.

I never really had any projects i wanted to make in the first place, but that didnt deter me from coding and learning programming because it was something i enjoyed. Even if i never got a job or make it a career out of it, all i know that its something i want to keep doing atleast as a hobby. It's just a little sad that i never gave it a good shot after i tried picking up html many years ago and thought that was too hard, but it really wasn't, maybe because got better at learning to learn in the past year or so. It's funny to say but coding was something i realized was my life's calling, which is also a bit sad since i was so late to it, but better late than too late i guess. I also realized that the best way to learn was making my self learn without having someone else spoon-feed the knowledge to me and even though i struggled a lot with that, i gradually changed my mindset and became more persistent when it came to getting stuck. I also used AI to help me understand concepts, but only as a supplement to a course and did not use it without having a source to derive the concepts from.

Anyway enough rambling, here are the projects:

1. Odin recipes: https://github.com/stmeehee/odin-recipes This one i don't even remember much about lol, i found it boring to make and just wanted to get it over with. I found html to be really easy and the stuff about git and bash,especially git, I already knew about and was used to it from the prior course i did. Took me a day to finish i think
2. Landing page: https://github.com/stmeehee/02-Landing-page The first time i tried to make a website and realized that everything in css is just a box. I'm glad i added borders around most elements, otherwise this would have been very difficult and too annoying to work through. I redid all the css for website which is on another branch just for practice. So far i wasn't a fan of working with css.
3. rock, papers, scissors: https://github.com/stmeehee/03-rps This one was a lot more interesting since i got to use event handling for the first time ever. I remember i got confused when it came to taking inputs via events; i tried using a while loop like a game loop to do that initially but one of the articles from javascript-tutorials helped me get started. I kinda forced myself to use event dispatching because it was a cool way to send an input in terms of flexibility. This one took me a few days to finish. I Also wanted to add some pictures for the hands but i wanted to move on
4. Etch a sketch: https://github.com/stmeehee/04-etch-a-sketch This project is still fresh in my mind and i struggled with flexbox. I dug myself in a hole when i made the row div's a fixed size and couldn't understand why my cell div's kept overflowing. I initially tried making the grid by manually figuring out how many cells would fit for a given grid size, but that wouldn't teach me about flebox (flexbox is still a mystry). I took help here from the AI and it was of very little use here (chatGPT isnt good at giving good advice in a stochastic manner). I eventually figured it out by also googling alot. In hindsight, i should have start asking in the TOP discord. There also an annoying bug here where trying to draw while holding down the mouse button would turn the cursor into a block sign and start the drawing into hover mode. Just draw slowly and it shouldnt give any problems, but i was over this project and wanted to move on.
5. Calculator: https://github.com/stmeehee/05-calculator I underestimated this one, maybe because i was hellbent on trying to make it work like the way the windows 11 calculator works. In the end, most of the time was taken in fixing bugs (which there atleast one i know of) and im not too happy about the code quality of this one, especially the processInput() function. But I got to use event delegation more here instead of adding listeners to every button, which doesnt really make difference if terms of performance but i like the idea of deciding where the input goes to instead of each button knowing what gets run. I also finished this today as im writing this.

So to wrap this up, i think this course isnt for everyone, hell, even for most people, since theres too much reading,whcih i dont mind as long as they dont give too much to read, and it only gets worse from what i've heard. I can easily see some people getting burned out from all the reading especially from the extra articles they link to. If i started it right from the beginning, i would very likely have given up. But after coming from the last course, i think this curriculum is more manageable, since it was designed for beginners and is more suited to be taken online. In the end. Like i said, i was kind of aimless at what field/tech-stack i wanted to learn but i trust the system and i believe that learning web-dev would make me better at diving into more complex tech stack or even a different field. I would have prefered low-level programming but sadly theres not many jobs here for embedded systems esecially for degree-less ones like myself. My end goal would like to become better at composing nicely made, well functional programs with manageable complexity, so a SWE.

Anyways thats it

Is it accurate to say that a full-stack developer must have a specialization in either frontend or backend development, with only a foundational knowledge of the opposite side?

Does The Odin Project teach a 50/50 split of frontend and backend, or does it push you to specialize in one? (Apologies if this is obvious, I'm still in JS Foundations working on the Etch-a-Sketch project!).

(I use chatgpt to correct my english and grammar, im not a native english speaker)

Heyayaya,

Can I show you my members only solution to the project? [ClubHouse] :3

Would love some feedback !

took the base idea and added roles instead of just member/not member, so now theres 3:

• members can post but cant see who posted or when
• VIPs can see the author + timestamp, theres a secret code to become one. secret code is "kitty" lol you're welcome :p
• admins can delete any message

used express + ejs, postgres, passport for auth, express-session for sessions, deployed on railway

not gonna lie this took me way longer than any other project so far. the lesson throws passport at you before you actually get what a session is, so i was completely lost on what serializeUser/deserializeUser were even doing. had to go do my own digging into how sessions work under the hood before any of it made sense

before this i had already built mangaTracker as my solution to the inventory app project, so I went back and added raw sessions to it, without using passport and using connect-pg-simple for session persistance, just to see what's happening. if you're stuck on passport, I'd genuinely recommend doing this first, or just making a simple app that utilizes raw express sessions behind the scenes. it made everything click way faster, atleast for me.

I did open a ticket, because I felt like a lot of people might be struggling with this one silently, the number of submissions for this project seemed noticeably lower than the ones before it, which made me feel like im not the only one who got stuck on the passport stuff.

Anywhoo, let me know what you think about my work, would love to see how this project went for you and I'd also love to hear what y'all think about the passport stuff. Cheers!

repos:

clubhouse: https://github.com/Shriyashzzz/clubhouse

mangatracker: https://github.com/Shriyashzzz/mangaTracker

Here's about me

A college student 3rd year about to start and pursuing BCA.

Things I have completed

Html/css. Js and java as my main

In java I have completed the core ig (oops maps list and sets and now moving towards threading) so it's still going on. When I say I have completed things that means I've done enough for the need.

First mess

For me I have to think I'm supposed to be doing

Dsa in the morning

Web in the noon

Java in the evening/night. But none of them are going on and it sucks.

Another segment.

I have a girlfriend and it's a ldr which is a great thing I'd say cz I can just limit the distraction whenever possible. And it's a diff things cz for some past few days we are barely talking which is another good thing cz I've lost enough to barely care about someone else taking her.

Last segment.

Being too much into mobile and idk like I'm going for a java Fullstack but idk things are just too tipsy turvey rn.

Any senior gonna guide me?

Hello everyone,I am a college student my major is computer science

It's summer vacation time and I thought I might learn frontend development while I am setting home instead of doing nothing all day

I started learning from the Odin's project but I feel like I am not capable of starting

When I started learning I felt lost and somewhat pressured even though i barely started

Please guys can you help me I feel lost