The WebMD of Web Development

This exercise was not as terrible as I thought it would be. For the first time in seven weeks I can say thank you to Codecademy for leaving me with a boat as I did the homework. As always there was a necessary assist from W3Schools, the paddle, but I was not completely in the dark this week.

That being said, I have to thank W3Schools for explaining how to connect my PHP file to the HTML page. I looked back at my notes, and reflected on our class, and realized that the explanation from Greg was the only one we had to go on.

Now there was some confusion, which showed up when I sent my repository. Every now and then Googling the answers feels like looking to WebMD for a health diagnosis and falling down a rabbit hole. Since Codecademy gave no instructions, I looked to W3Schools. They helped me get some of the code but showed several different ways of connecting and referencing the PHP and getting it to do things. Naturally, I chose one that did not do what I thought it did. This explanation, among the four others available, seemed to make the most sense though. Well now it’s been fixed and the code does what it should.

I am definitely happy to be moving on to editing code instead of writing it from scratch. I am narrowing down the themes and am ready to adjust the child theme to be what I need it to be. I’m also excited to see my dad’s reaction, hopefully a happy one, when the site is done. I am not excited for the many more bottomless pits that Google and W3Schools will be dropping me in. Yes, trial and error are all part of it, but doctors tell patients to avoid WebMD, we seem to be doing the opposite.

Oh well. C’est la vie.

1 thought on “The WebMD of Web Development

  1. Greg Linch

    “Yes, trial and error are all part of it, but doctors tell patients to avoid WebMD, we seem to be doing the opposite.”

    Sorry to burst the analogy bubble, but you’ve been doing exactly the right thing by searching for answers online. Also, if I’m the doctor in this scenario, searching is exactly what was prescribed! I guarantee you’ll be using trial-and-error for writing code even after doing it for years.

    One skill that will be very useful after this class is knowing how to learn technical things (like coding) on your own, often with the help of Google. With that in mind, I think the “teach a person to fish” metaphor is the most apt for our class. 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.