This week’s assignments showed me on the one hand how simple basic coding can be, but also the complexity of web development. Specifically, I found Codecademy to be clear, whereas GitHub was a bit confusing.

Codecademy, at least my experience thus far, appears to be a very logical, helpful, direct, and clear software that will be an excellent tool throughout the class. The layout of the software is easy to understand; the directions are in plain English, making them easy to follow and internalize; and the layout of the website makes it easy to read the directions while simultaneously practicing your coding so you don’t have to flip between screens (which often causes me to miss steps when I am trying to navigate through multiple pages.) I am excited to see next steps with Codecademy as I found myself discussing with family later that night all of the top-line coding practices I learned in just the first two exercises.

GitHub, on the other hand, was a bit more complex for me. Although the directions were clear, I do not understand the purpose or use of GitHub in the web development world. Step one and two were clear, and I understand the notion that “branches” are different versions of a save file, similar to having the “original” document and then the “original vk edits” and then the final “original FINAL” so you can see the changes along the way. Beyond that, however, I am not clear what the goal of a repository is? Especially given that, at the end of the directions, we combined the “readme-edits” branch we created with the original and then deleted the “readme-edits” version, so doesn’t that mean we lost the tracked version of the document?

I am sure the reason for GitHub will become clearer throughout the semester, and I would be interested in hearing from my fellow students their experience with the software, what they have learned thus far as relates to GitHub, and the role they see GitHub playing in future web development assignments.

Codecademy: https://www.codecademy.com/vkinnealey

Test Repo: https://github.com/vkinnealey/hello-world/blob/master/README.md ** not sure if this is correct? What is a “test repo”?