[natasham25]

I've been learning to code on my own for 6-7 months before applying for Dev Bootcamp, and I've tried pretty much every resource. At a certain point, although I've made some serious progress, I hit a wall. I could build things and make them work, but I wanted to follow the best practices and know good from bad code. Dev Bootcamp really filled the gaps in the my knowledge.

That said, Dev Bootcamp is not a necessary condition for learning to code. If you have a specific learning style, especially if you're good at reading books, you can learn on your own, although it might take longer. If you do well with networking, personal branding, build a few projects, and contribute to the open source community, you can get the same result.

I cover all these options in my book, including Hacker Schools all around the world and a lot of online class and resources that are completely free.