I Learned Solidity From YouTube. Here's Exactly What Happened.
Why I Even Started:
I wasn't chasing hype.
Everyone around me was talking about blockchain like it was magic — NFTs, crypto, Web3. But what actually pulled me in wasn't the money or the trend. It was a simple question: What if you could write code that nobody could tamper with? No middleman. No server controlled by one company. Just logic, sitting on a blockchain, executing exactly as written. Forever. That idea genuinely fascinated me. So I went looking for answers — and ended up on YouTube, on a channel by Patrick Collins.
Finding Patrick Collins If you're a beginner trying to learn Solidity, there's a good chance someone has already pointed you to Patrick Collins. And for good reason. His teaching style is clear, honest, and doesn't assume you already know everything. He explains the why behind every concept, not just the how. For someone like me — curious but completely new to blockchain development — that made all the difference. I started watching. I kept watching. And then I opened Remix IDE.
What Is Remix? (And Why Beginners Should Start Here) Remix is a browser-based IDE for writing, compiling, and deploying Solidity smart contracts. No installation. No setup. Just open the website and start writing code. For a beginner, this is everything. The last thing you want when you're already learning a new language is to fight your environment at the same time. Remix handles the heavy lifting — compiler, deployment, test networks — so you can focus on actually understanding Solidity.
The Theory Made Sense. The Code Did Not. Here's the honest part. I understood the concept of smart contracts quickly. A smart contract is like a vending machine — put in the right input, get a guaranteed output. No human involved. No trust required. Just code. That part clicked fast. But the moment I started writing actual Solidity? Different story.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;
contract SimpleStorage { uint256 public myNumber;
function store(uint256 _number) public {
myNumber = _number;
}
function retrieve() public view returns (uint256) {
return myNumber;
}
}
This looks simple. And it is — once you understand it. But my first few days were full of questions like:
Why does every file start with // SPDX-License-Identifier? What does pragma solidity actually do? Why is uint256 and not just int? What is public doing here exactly?
I understood the theory. I struggled with every line of code. And that gap — between understanding and doing — is where most beginners give up. I didn't. I kept rewinding Patrick's videos. I kept rewriting the same contract. Line by line, the fog started lifting.
The Moment It Clicked There was a specific moment where everything changed. I deployed my first contract on Remix's test network. I clicked the store function, passed in a number, and hit transact. The transaction went through. I clicked retrieve. My number came back. It sounds small. But in that moment, I understood — this code just ran on a simulated blockchain. Nobody controlled it. No server. No database. Just the contract, doing exactly what I told it to do. That was the moment I knew I wanted to go deeper.
What I Learned (Beyond the Code) A few things nobody tells you when you start with Solidity:
Solidity looks like JavaScript but thinks differently. The syntax feels familiar if you know JS. But the mental model is completely different. You're writing code that will run on a decentralized network. Every operation costs gas. Every state change is permanent. That changes how you think about writing logic.
Remix is a playground, not a production tool. Remix is perfect for learning. But real projects use tools like Hardhat, and real wallets like MetaMask. Think of Remix as your training wheels — essential at first, but you'll outgrow them.
The best way to learn is to break things. I deployed broken contracts. I passed wrong inputs. I watched transactions fail. Every error taught me something a tutorial couldn't.
Where I Am Now From that first SimpleStorage contract on Remix, I've moved to:
Writing contracts with Solidity Testing and deploying with Hardhat Connecting contracts to the real world with MetaMask and Web3.js Building decentralized applications on Ethereum
And I'm still learning. Every day.
If You're Just Starting Watch Patrick Collins. Open Remix. Write the contract. Break it. Fix it. Deploy it. Don't wait until you "understand enough." You learn Solidity by writing Solidity. The theory will make more sense once your hands are in the code.
