Developers, how do you keep yourself motivated?

I really want to start developing websites, but I just can't stay motivated. In my opinion my HTML and CSS knowledge are great. Like I basically know most of the tags, and all that stuff, but when I try and make something using them I can't and just quit for a few days.
I spent about a year on Codecademy learning HTML and CSS. Currently i'm working with JavaScript. I'm about halfway done, but still feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I still use HTML templates (which I feel ashamed of), and Bootstrap if I even try to "work" on a site.

I want to know how you Developers keep yourselves motivated to keep working? Of course you guys are probably pros at PHP, JavaScript, and all that, but what makes you keep developing. I honestly want to learn, but it's just a downer when you can't make a nice looking navigation bar for your site (:c). Also, when and where did you learn? I'm 15 currently and want to become a Web Designer. I have the design part down, but the actual development is my downside.

-Taylor

If you can't make a decent looking nav bar I would focus on that first, don't try to learn everything in one shot you will fail miserably.

Join communities like Forrst or Dribbble where you can see what other are doing and get inspired and make your own ideas. Read, read and then read some more constantly to keep learning and stay current on what's new and how things will be changing.

Dissect other peoples code to see how they work and think, get on forums and ask/answer questions that's how you will learn the most and most of all experiment and feel free to do what ever you want or talk to friends or relative and ask them what they would think something cool would be and take it up as a personal learning project/experience.

I applaud you for at your young age looking to learn something instead of waste your time, good luck and keep learning.

I agree with Bens points. Just keep at it, find the right tools and resources, learn to use the browsers Inspector to analyze and debug the code (yours and others).

I was your age, or even younger when I got into web development. But it was way easier back then (late 90's).
Knowing what all the elements and parameters do and "being great at making use of them" are two different things. You can make something look correct in so many ways with CSS, but there is usually only one way that is the "correct one". It just takes time to learn all the different quirks of different browsers (luckily less of those problems lately), and to find the best ways of doing things.

Also, at least for me, it's a big difference between web programmer and web designer. Having a finished design in front of me, I can program almost anything. But trying to "design" by programming is just messy and slow, at least for me. Learning to keep those things separate was good for me.

Bootstrap is great!
Using templates (Bootstrap based!) is ok as long as you are comfortable getting into someone elses code.
Working with web development professionally I know some customers just don't care about a super unique design, if a "semi unique, template based" is a lot cheaper (which it is).

Also an other thing would be to keep your self super updated on new stuff happening in the web dev world, and just get to know a little bit of everything, and dive into the things you find most interesting. http://www.echojs.com/

Quote from: benmarte at Aug 21, 2013, 11:24 AM

If you can't make a decent looking nav bar I would focus on that first, don't try to learn everything in one shot you will fail miserably.

Join communities like Forrst or Dribbble where you can see what other are doing and get inspired and make your own ideas. Read, read and then read some more constantly to keep learning and stay current on what's new and how things will be changing.

Dissect other peoples code to see how they work and think, get on forums and ask/answer questions that's how you will learn the most and most of all experiment and feel free to do what ever you want or talk to friends or relative and ask them what they would think something cool would be and take it up as a personal learning project/experience.

I applaud you for at your young age looking to learn something instead of waste your time, good luck and keep learning.

Thanks! I am already on Dribbble, I didn't know about Forrst though - seems interesting. I ask questions a lot on StackExchange, and most of the time get great responses. My main issue in developing is just not knowing how to create my designs or put them into actions. And it feels weird asking on StackExchange how to make something and when they give you a code, and you barely understand exactly why it works.



Quote from: Eminos at Aug 21, 2013, 12:07 PM

I agree with Bens points. Just keep at it, find the right tools and resources, learn to use the browsers Inspector to analyze and debug the code (yours and others).

I was your age, or even younger when I got into web development. But it was way easier back then (late 90's).
Knowing what all the elements and parameters do and "being great at making use of them" are two different things. You can make something look correct in so many ways with CSS, but there is usually only one way that is the "correct one". It just takes time to learn all the different quirks of different browsers (luckily less of those problems lately), and to find the best ways of doing things.

Also, at least for me, it's a big difference between web programmer and web designer. Having a finished design in front of me, I can program almost anything. But trying to "design" by programming is just messy and slow, at least for me. Learning to keep those things separate was good for me.

Bootstrap is great!
Using templates (Bootstrap based!) is ok as long as you are comfortable getting into someone elses code.
Working with web development professionally I know some customers just don't care about a super unique design, if a "semi unique, template based" is a lot cheaper (which it is).

Also an other thing would be to keep your self super updated on new stuff happening in the web dev world, and just get to know a little bit of everything, and dive into the things you find most interesting. http://www.echojs.com/

I am on WebDesignerDepot quite a lot, and so I get many tips & tricks from them. I've been collecting templates from ThemeForest to use on sites, so I have have that. I just would really like to start making my own creations and such, because the likelihood of you finding the exact idea you thought of (especially without a technical name) is pretty low.

Anyway, thanks for your replies!

I learned menus from A List Apart, in fact Evo's menu (which is reflected in Revo's main menu) was developed after I read this article.

I have recently bought a few of their ebooks on responsive design.

Motivation is a tricky thing no matter what discipline you're in. For me, curiosity drives me to figure out how things work. I love the feeling of satisfaction after crafting a good tool. Sometimes I have to pace myself because I'm not going to be brilliant and productive 24/7. I figure out what things are hardest and then divide them into bite-sized chunks. Sometimes you gotta get creative about finding a way to learn/implement a skill in a way that you find interesting. Sometimes it's not fun, but the practicality of a skill can motivate you (e.g. I learn to fix this part on my car or I pay out the nose to have someone else do it for me).

It's really important, imo, to select tasks for yourself that you're likely to succeed at, especially when you're first learning, and keep at them until you succeed.

At first, you can pat yourself on the back for doing things you've never done before. If you keep at it, you'll eventually reach a point where you can pat yourself on the back for doing things *no one* has ever done before. Once you reach that point, you have the opposite problem -- too much motivation.

I find that there are not nearly enough hours in the day to do all the web-development work I want to do.

The Web is a medium for saying something. To be motivated to learn the ways of that medium, have something to say that you cannot contain, that fairly bursts out of you.

To have something uncontainable to say (or sell, or explain, or against which to warn etc.), read good literature and hold the world up against it.

Here is a notorious example of the triumph of function over form, of content over presentation: http://www.drudgereport.com/ It's an ugly site, and it was even uglier in earlier days, but it is highly trafficked.