The weeks that we have been doing this have shown me that I can be getting better at coding, while constantly being confused about one thing or another. As soon as I get the answer to something I don’t understand, the next thing we do reinforces the idea that I am learning via the “trial by fire” method. (Lots of fire.)
The JavaScript course 3 and the jQuery courses 1 and 2 were actually easier than I had experienced the past two weeks. I am really pleased with how I am progressing through the Codecademy courses and I can see how much I have learned. Even though I still feel like I have jumped into the deep end of the pool, I am excited to put my (limited) experience into practical application and see how I do.
I really want to get into some actual web-based setup, so that we can see tangible results (including massive failures!). I want to attempt to make some things work on my website, realize that they don’t work, try to figure out how to make them work, give up and Google why it’s not working, and then laugh about how simple the mistake was that I made. This is how I learn best (hey, don’t judge me, haha!).
The only part I am confused about for this week was the web hosting and setup of our sites. I got the GoDaddy and installed WordPress on it, but I didn’t do anything that I remembered from class (I wasn’t able to do them in class because my laptop wasn’t able to handle the “newfangled” software, and so I wrote everything down). I’m not sure if we’re going to go over it again in class, or it was a “FYI” kind of thing, or if we will use it later?
I was a bit upset that GoDaddy couldn’t sell me the domain I wanted, and there’s nothing even on the domain, so I wanted to take it over, but alas, I think I will be able to move on from it.
The local setup is a little more involved (install MAMP, create a database, set up WordPress, etc), whereas the GoDaddy setup is pretty streamlined/simple.