This Week in Coding: #010

Ahhh I’ve reached the 10 week mark… of documenting of course lol.

I’m sad to announce that I still have not completed my portfolio. I woke up this morning and saw this tweet that I’m going to share here to put everything in perspective, for myself.

https://twitter.com/IAmRichJones/status/760110037700272128

I am also probably where I should be right now, despite my maybe ambitious goals and deadlines. Not having that portfolio done does not mean I’m not learning or making progress. The portfolio is the lag measure (Deep Work) and I shouldn’t use that to measure my progress. My weekday commitment to studying for a set period of time is the lead measure I should be holding myself accountable to and I am still doing that.

I’ve learned so much in this process also. I’m renewed my interest in Design and leveled up with Adobe Illustrator (and sort of fallen in love with it to be honest). I created a logo for myself, created wireframe/mockup templates in Illustrator, created a wireframe for my portfolio pages on different screen sizes. Next up, I want to learn how to use Git and GitHub for WordPress projects. I’ve found some great resources but I haven’t been able to dive in. Every new concept or skill I’m learning is meaningful and helping me reach my ultimate goal of a job & a portfolio, so I shouldn’t discount all of this work I’m doing, because that is why some people end of dropping their goals – they don’t see the immediate results, which discourages them from continuing.

I look forward to a more productive week this time around and hopefully something to show the people!

Self-paced coding training and/or activities:

• Completed Lynda.com: Using media queries in an SVG

Good Reads & Resources:

• Landing Your First Job as  Junior Web Developer **great advice, helpful as I ramp up my job search
• A Guide to Personal Side Projects ** loads of inspiration here. One of my favorite pieces of advice from this article is to separate essentials from enhancements. I know that I get bogged down trying to make everything the way I want it to appear and delaying deployment because all enhancements are not fully functional although essential ones are.
• Type Terms **I just like typography so this is a handy dandy guide on type terms if you’re not already aquainted.
• CSS coding techniques … Best practices. My favorite line from this is “do not let nesting[via CSS preprocessors like Sass and Less] generate CSS rules you wouldn’t type yourself.“
• The Skinny on CSS Attributes – Learned about CSS attribute selectors. I’ve seen them used before but didn’t really have a grasp on the why or how. I love CSS Tricks.
• How to write Medium stories people actually read – great all around tips on developing content and packaging.
• On Freelancing

Meetups/Events:

• n/a

Plans for next week:

• Women Who Code CD 100DaysofCommits Kick-off party on Friday