Self-education, web development. How to get out of the impasse?

Question

IT education

Good day. I've been studying the web for quite some time now.
Here is an example of my first project (timer) in plain JS:
https://codepen.io/star52/project/editor/DVkRPP

Now I:

1)Изучил HTML&CSS&JS по книгам из серии HeadFirst издательства O'Reilly.
2)Начал изучать PHP (однако остановился). Могу обрабатывать простейшие
запросы, а данные пока записывать просто в текстовом формате
(минуя столкновения с Базами Данных - ибо и так всего много).
3)Систематизирую зания более объемными книгами Вёрстка - автор
Влад Мержевич (2012) и JS Илья Кантор (2015). Плюс в первой книги
есть упражнения.
4)Закончил писать два проекта (на один скинул ссылку на codepen).
Второй это доработанный морской бой из учебной книги. К сожалению
нигде не опубликован.

However, I constantly feel my inferiority - there is a very
big gap between my knowledge and requirements for the
position of Junior front-end developer. Might be worth
looking into design?
Initially, I'm targeting the server side. However,
after the client's attempt to master it, her mood generally dropped.
Am I on the right track?

Answer 1

To put it bluntly, your timer sucks. 300 lines of code for no reason. Well, 60 lines, well, 80, but damn it 300?
And what did you do
So, are we talking about your goal or about someone else's? And if you like, then never at all. For example, you can download OpenServer and make a separate php file for each request, which will give you statics. For example so.

<?php
echo json_encode(['firstname => 'Иван', 'lastname' => 'Иванов']);

As you can see, nothing else is required from you as a front-end developer.
I don’t want to brag, but I read php for 2 weeks at w3school on a bench in the village before work and that’s it. And before that, I just worked as a workbench for several months, here I certainly sweated longer. Based on this, it seems to me that you are simply afraid to go to work in a serious way. How long can girls run?
And now we slowly inhale and exhale the frontend from the lungs. There is a feeling of calm. Do you hear how the server's bp cooler buzzes? Not? And he buzzes. good luck.

Answer 2

The timer is good. For a person who has one and a half training projects behind him - even a very good one. Yes, some mysterious variables, and possibly overengineering, but overall I like it.
Why do you need a design if you aim at the back?
Requirements for a junior differ from company to company. What did you see there so terrible that your hands dropped?

Answer 3

Hi Peter! I recommend not listening to these sweethearts who say "you're not talking about anything" and "what do you think, you don't work much", "your code is shit", etc.
Here it seems to me, firstly, you need to understand and realize a few simple things yourself.
Namely:
1. The work of a programmer is quite complicated and tedious at some points. There is no such thing that you have learned something and that's it, sigh and do it yourself. It implies a constant search for solutions to the tasks. And over time, you yourself will feel that somewhere you already understand something, and somewhere you know approximately how to do it, but you still need to figure it out, this is constant improvement. Well, so that it was here for you 2 point:
2. Decide on the direction in which you want to try yourself. Do not spray on everything. In fact, in the first couple you need to know the basics so that you can do simple things, and complex things will follow simple things because this is the base! There is no way without it
. 3. Once you have a base, this is already a huge work and investment, then you are looking for companies that need people with a good base who are ready to supervise you and provide you with projects for your experience. Of course, you will still receive very little money at this stage, but then you will have experience with communicating with more experienced people, already more or less real projects for the portfolio.
Self-learning is good, but you always need a person with great experience for you to reach out to because this is development.
Ps and yes, don't despair, it's a long hard way, be patient and everything will work out!