First of all, where the hell have I been??? I started writing this post on May 5, 2016 … what had happened??? It’s been over a month – shame shame shame.
Seriously – life happens and you get distracted and getting back on track is hard. I didn’t fall off completely but I stopped documenting what I was doing (big mistake). Turns out the act of writing up these little progress reports helps me stay accountable although I’m certain no one else reads this INSERT cry/laugh emoji. It’s also just good for review. I’ve done a lot over the last few weeks and if I were doing what I was SUPPOSE to, I could come back here and find it all outlined. While I’m still fine tuning how I plan to document my weekly activities, I know that I need to do it.
Luckily I didn’t name this series “Week #X in Coding” because this certainly would not be week 5, more like week 12/13ish.
Just to get you up to speed on all of my shenanigans – while I was away I had my first two technical interviews, one was very bad and the other was good-ish. I didn’t get either job, I did not want them either but the experience of interviewing is invaluable for me at this point, which I’ll write more about in detail for a later post (promise)!
I also traveled to New York to support a friend with this great project called Certified Words, I “celebrated” another birthday (yay old me!), I got sick the day after my birthday, spent two weeks cooped up at home trying to get well and also attempting to be productive by working through these Practical JavaScript modules. I also read this book called Deep Work by Cal Newport and it help me clarify my goals (as I discussed in my last post) and the strategies I need to implement in order to achieve them. I finally started feeling well enough last week and since, I’ve resumed my programming schedule. I’m back like never before!!
[insert fabulous GIF]
So I’ve been busy, just not in the ways I’d like to be. There is still no portfolio and that should be remedied by July 2016 – fingers crossed.
Below is really a mixed bag of stuff I read a month ago when I began prepping this post, some of the activities I’ve done, courses I’ve attended since along with this week.
Self-paced coding training, MOOCs and activities:
- PracticalJS modules (completed up until Lesson 10 and will continue with creating the to-do app as the creator of the program is continually adding updates). This course has really helped me understand objects and methods. Maybe I’ll write more about it sometime in the future. I took a lot of notes (well they’re mostly JS files will a bunch of comments lol). But I found someone who wrote more organized notes and uploaded to github, if you’re so inclined to check it out HERE.
- edX MOOC- HTML5 Part 1: HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices by W3C. I’ve completed Week 1-3. I’ll work on the coursework for the remaining three weeks next week. I’m familiar with HTML but this course really dives deep into the features added thanks to HTML5. There is so much to cover and while I’m going through each activity I wonder if and/or when I’ll be able to implement some of these features in any project. I’ll probably start with creating a multimedia site with HTML video functionality. Graphics and Animation are covered and whewww that is quite the activity to embark on with only HTML.
Reading Materials:
- How to Start a Side Business – While Working a Day Job
- Working Remotely
- A Basic HTML5 Template for Any Project
- Making the Switch Away from Icon Fonts to SVG: Converting Font Icons to SVG
- Styling Text with SVG Filters
- Refactoring Legacy CSS
- Why You Need to Refactor Your CSS
- Getting Started with Modules and Modular Front-End Development
- You might not need a CSS framework (a lot of gems here)
- Sass for Beginners **very helpful, wish I’d found it earlier
- Architecting Front-end Styles **addresses how you can organize your CSS
- Style Sheet Linting **very helpful as I’ve recently starting using Sass heavily
- Unfolding Critical CSS
- Considerations for styling the < pre > tag
- CSS containment **newer property alert! – of course working draft…
- Video: CSS in 2016 and Beyond **reviewed some of the new CSS3 features, some fully supported and others not. I can’t wait for GRID!
- Understanding The CSS Property Vale Syntax – helpful when reviewing the CSS documentation
- I’m Not a Talented Designer
- Being a Developer After 40***
- How Long Does Free Code Camp Take?
- How to Quit Your Job the Right Way
- Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years
- Getting Your First Job As A Software Developer
- How to learn web design when you have the creativity of Homer Simpson
- My (Simple) Workflow To Design And Develop A Portfolio Website
- How I Invented Databases
- A Simple Web Developer’s Guide to Color **for the inner designer in me
Coding Meetups/Events (since last update):
- Iron Yard Node.js Crash Course – I was able to follow along pretty well thanks to my improved understanding of objects and the DOM. Unfortunately I arrived maybe 10 minutes late and didn’t bother asking for the WiFi code, so I wasn’t able to completely create my own server the way everyone else was, but I copied all the code and plan on revisiting sometime in the near future.
- Attended WordPress DC June Meetup
- Attended a Women Who Code DC Ruby Fundamentals course – just covering some of the basics
- I’m planning to participate in my first hackathon on Saturday June 25th with DCFemTech – #HackForGood – scary excited!?!?
Plans for next week:
- Complete Weeks 3-6 of HTML5 Part 1: HTML5 Coding Essentials and Best Practices by W3C
- Continue work on my WordPress Theme Boilerplate – created w/Underscores. I’ve been working on it for weeks and got stuck on the navigation. I fixed my navigation and I think I’m ready to move on to other styling obstacles.
**Aside – so I spent a very long time trying to get my navigation menu to work for my WordPress theme boilerplate and the takeaway for me is that I’m kind of obsessed with navigation menus and the different ways designers and developers are styling them so whenever I see one on my mobile device or browser I save it for reference later. I think I might create a side project out of navigation menus — just because.
Explore later:
- Get into SMACSS