How did I learn Angular 8 in 15 days and ReactJS in 7 days?

Except my brother, no one knows how much time & efforts I made to learn Angular 8 in a very short span of time. And, may be few others know the time I took in learning ReactJS. Well, this blog of mine is gonna reveal this truth to all of you. I'm not saying that only I have done this. May be there are many others who may have learnt faster than me but it's fine. I am not competing them. I am in the race with myself, becoming better everyday, exploring everything and learning whatever I don't know yet.

Before I proceed, lemme tell you my feelings and confusion specially when I first thought of getting into one of these tech stacks.

A confusion between Angular and ReactJS

Before I began learning either of the tech, I was confused which one to start first. But, after doing some internet surfing, I came to a conclusion that ReactJS is easy to learn than Angular. So, I started grabbing PDF books, free tutorials for the ReactJS. And, also kept a book in my phone. So, here my learning through book reading finally began.

After going through few 4-5 chapters, I came in contact with a client who was looking for a frontend developer to build a SaaS product in Angular including PWA. I said I know ReactJS (with a thought that I am learning it and will be able to do). But, he was expecting an Angular developer preferably. Like always, I didn't wanna lose my client so said "Okay fine. I'll do it in Angular 8" which is supposed to be the most latest version that time and me knew nothing about it.

So, this is how I got my first Angular project without having any skills on it. And, the focus, now has to be shifted to learning Angular obviously.

So, I prepared a strategy for it and bootstrapped my learning path. I took 15 days to learn Angular as this was the only time I had (as a part of sprint timeline for designing the UI mockups).

So, let's understand what strategy I formed to learn it within 15 days.

How I learnt Angular in 15 days?

So, now I left ReactJS and started collecting resources for Angular 8. Joined few LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups and connected with Angular developers too. During the process, I came to know about few good tutorials.

I finally, got an entire Angular 8 video tutorial downloaded on my phone, consuming almost 2.5GB of space, I guess. And then, I publicly posted on LinkedIn, as a challenge to learn Angular in 15 days, using hashtag #15DaysChallenge. Not only this, I even posted daily updates with the status of my learning progress.

I was amazed because some Angular experts were noticing my progress apart from my college friends and colleagues who never used to hit a like on any of that post.

When you take a challenge publicly, it creates another level of pressure on you, achieving your own goals.

This is the reason, I took this challenge and no one would believe but I completed my initial learning progress on time and also delivered the client project successfully as per sprint timeline defined except a delay of 4-5 days which we already had in our buffer.

After coming from office, I gave at least 2 hours daily on watching those video tutorials. Even during my commute, I also kept on listening audio or watching videos as per suitability. And, on weekends, put almost an entire day on learning and grabbing the concepts. Apart from this, I also worked on a temporary dummy basic project. Watched old videos again to find solution whenever I stuck at something. If in case, I don't find it there, then I went out to stackoverflow or GitHub. And, also contacted professionals to take out something from their knowledge, asking questions after doing some R&D by myself.

So, this is how I was able to learn Angular 8 in 15 days. However, further learning and getting expertise is still a long path to go. And yes, that project was also delivered amazingly good with positive remarks from client.

Now, awaiting for some complex projects in coming days to make my learning more worthy and skills achieving new levels. But, a first milestone was successfully achieved.

If you have no one to put pressure on you, become the one to pressurize yourself.

So, this is how I learnt Angular. But, now is the time to tell you about ReactJS. The learning journey of ReactJS is also quite amazing for me.

How I learnt ReactJS in 7 days?

Learning Angular in 15 days was in itself a big challenge and achievement for me. But, after few months of making it happen, I somehow got involved into another rapid learning process. And, this time it was with ReactJS. So, this little conversation below is going to reveal this process and journey with ReactJS.

One day, project manager called me in the meeting room, he was with 4-5 other developers doing planning for a new application development project, asked me

Project Manager: “Deepak, do you know ReactJS?”

Me: No. But, I’ve worked on an Angular project.

He: How fast can you learn it?

Me: I don’t know. I will see and confirm.

Developer #1: You’ve worked on Angular naa. So, it is also similar.

Project Manager: Can you do this?

Me: Okay. I’ll do.

Project Manager: Okay. We got a new ReactJS project and will be starting work in 20 days. So, start learning from today onwards.

Me: Okay.

So, it seemed like a good conversation but it became a challenge for me because it became a sort of commitment now. For next 2 days, I wasn’t able to give any time on its learning, and just waiting for the weekend to start from. But on Wednesday, one of the team member told me that we’ll be starting it from Monday.

Now, I was in a hussy bussy situation, left with only a week. I instantly started learning it with all other project work. And since, I was pretty clear about components things so it didn’t take me enough time to grasp the concepts. And this is how, I learnt ReactJS within 7 days. And, the strategy I followed was bit different this time. I had put pressure on me by myself but didn't publicized on social media. But, in either way, learning curve finally happened here too.

Further achievements with ReactJS

Learning ReactJS is one aspect. But, getting hands on expertise is another. And, this expertise is gained when we work on actual projects. As the complexity of the project increases, our skills groom. So, by the successful delivery of first ReactJS project, I got another headless ecommerce project to be done in ReactJS. And, the same was again delivered successfully in less than the anticipated timeline.

Achievements aren’t enough if you are serious about gaining more momentum and exponential growth in your career. With this belief, I keep on learning every day.

There is no reason I do have in saying NO to learning any programming language, library or framework.

Carve your own ways. It is you who has to do this. Only you can do this. Be an all-rounder. May be that’s why I mostly like doing everything by myself.

I have always been a solo player rather than being a good team player, learning from everyone, sharing whatever I learnt and practicing by my own. Still, I’ve always been a good choice of collaborative work as well. And, if the other person is passionate about programming, then it used to be a wow situation for both.

At the time of originally writing this article, I've been working on another learning curve for certification purpose. As soon as, my certification gets done, I'll share my story about that too.

I really look forward to hear comments from every reader whether it's positive or negative. Have a great day and be ready for my next upcoming blog.