Looking Ahead

Now that class is over, I’ve been thinking about what’s next for my travel site and beyond, and I have come to the conclusion that “functionality” is where it’s at. I certainly need to strengthen and expand my understanding of, as well as continue practicing, HTML and CSS. But I shied away from JavaScript because I found it difficult — where in truth, once mastered, it may be the most useful language we learned.

I was playing around with my new site, A Life Surfeited, this weekend and it came to my attention that there are a few functionalities I want to add to enhance my plugins. This of course will require that I modify the JS (or find new plugins!) For example, in my World Map plugin there is the option to link a specific pin to a post. This is super great and helpful, but I want to take it further to have the post title, location, and date pop up when the user hovers over the pin. This will require some JS magic!

Beyond my site and JS, I am thinking about venturing into the land of Python or Ruby on Rails. I took intro classes on both languages about a year ago from General Assembly here in DC and will try either Codecademy or Learn to Code the Hard Way this go around. I think they will make more sense now that I grasp the larger concept of programming and know some basic skills.

As far as what I’d use them for, I am unsure. I have yet to find a language I am super pumped about, so I’m going to keep at it. I hear Apple’s Swift is pretty intuitive and easy to learn also. For me, I think my adventures in coding will serve me personally as I delve deeper into the blogging world, and anytime I need to communicate with the web developers in my office or any future career. Who knows though — maybe I’ll end up following a path towards working in code. I’m old enough now to know that the choices we make (aka. taking this class) have meaning and drive the direction of our life in some way. I’m not running away from programming, so that’s a good sign!

If nothing else, this class opened my eyes to a world I was always curious about and knew so little of. As a connoisseur of any/all knowledge, it was very satisfying and is what kept me going even at my wits end; “Maybe this challenge will teach me something I didn’t know before.” Including teaching me a little more about myself;)

Best of luck in all your future endeavors classmates! And thanks for a great, mind-expanding semester, Greg!

Cheers,

Jane