There's is a cliche we normally hear which says "Nothing is permanent on earth except change". This statement is proven to be right when we see the plethora of technologies that are produced on daily basis. This brings so much confusion as to what to learn and when is the right time to learn it.
I faced this same question some years ago and I made some mistakes that I would love to share in this article. It's very normal to be overwhelmed by all the programming languages and frameworks out there and someone new to the Tech space may have some questions on how to go about them and which is the best one to learn.
So, I have five things to consider when starting your tech journey
1. Know Exactly what you want :
I can say for sure that when I started my journey, I did not know what I wanted. I learned a lot of programming languages not knowing what I wanted to achieve with them. I thought knowing so many programming languages made me look like a god. After learning so many programming languages I realized I had not learned how to use these programming languages to solve real-world problems.
So, when I say know exactly what you want I mean know what career you are aiming at that is to say do you want to be a web developer(that could be Frontend, backend, or Full stack) or a Mobile developer, Game developer, DevOps Engineer.......
Once you know your goal it will be very easy to know the path you should follow to get there. My teacher used to say and I quote "If you don't know where you are going to, anywhere you are will look like your destination"
2. Discover the way to your Destination
After you have known what career path you want to follow, the next thing is to know the path you need to follow to get there. Every career path out there has many videos and articles that give you road maps on how to efficiently become what you would like to be. It will do you good to know the path to follow. It saddens me sometimes when I realize that it took me two years to have a road map of what I needed to learn to become what I wanted to be simply because I missed the first point. For example, someone who wants to be a MERN full stack developer knows that he/she needs to start by learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript, then proceed with REAC JS, express/ node js, and finally MongoDb with that in mind there's no way such a person can waste so much time on none essentials.
3. Master at least one Programming Language
One mistake I made was to jump from one programming language to another without mastering anyone from the onset. All programming languages have the same fundamental concepts they only differ in their syntax. We can use the analogy of the so many languages on earth, they all have almost similar words that convey one main idea but just that they are not pronounced or spelled the same way. This is true of programming languages, Once you master one it becomes very easy to switch to anyone when the need arises.
4. Focus on Fundamentals
There's always this urge to learn the latest framework or technology but if we look very well we will see that all these frameworks are just abstractions of the fundamental concepts. So, if you're starting in your tech journey make sure to focus on the fundamentals like loops, variables, arrays, functions ... Schools that teach computer science will always teach their students fundamental concepts, you'll have difficulty entering a class and seeing the teacher teaching the students introduction to Spring boot or React. So, do yourself well to dwell on the fundamental concepts until you have a solid grasp on them.
5. Project Driven Learning
This is one of the mistakes that really frustrated my early days in tech. As I previously said, I learned a lot of concepts without trying to use them to solve problems. project-driven learning is for sure the best way to learn. what do I mean? when you learn a new concept use it to build a mini project, it will not only build your confidence but will also add to your portfolio. when you try out what you learned on projects, you will make mistakes and then see how to use some concepts you've learned as well as how not to use them.
CONCLUSION
Tech is for sure the big thing in this era and its proliferation is nothing to write about if one must embark on a journey like this, it makes sense to start on a good note. I hope with these few points newbies in the tech field would make better decisions that would eventually lead them to their desired destination in the shortest possible time.