This week’s JavaScript/jQuery assignment exposed my fear in my “bringing all the pieces together” post. The reality of contextualizing the experiences from the language programs and the others. Unlike the Codeacademy tutorials that focuses on a specific skill at a time, I noticed that the marriage between the difference programming languages could be challenging. I felt like I know and understand what is being required on the assignment, yet I was struggling to pull it off.

Observations

I made an interesting observation that, spending time to understand JavaScript is a must. There is a logical reasoning that is grounded in understanding JavaScript and without that one will be limited in their use of jQuery. I was caught up with mixing the programs from JavaScript and jQuery and I understand that is fine and will work, but will prefer being consistent with one, preferably JavaScript and eventually jQuery. I also observe from other tutorials that other programs used different methods for their gallery slideshows. They always lose me when they apply a shortcut and other built-in websites programs like light box for their projects.

I am pretty sure there are lots of mistakes in the logic I used for my code, but there seems to be no way out. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s post on their experiences.  I had my first interaction with the developer I’m profiling for the midterm assignment and she mentioned how JavaScript could be the most challenging, but the more you go after it the better understanding you gain. “It will click after several attempts.” she said.

I will like to know your views about this JavaScript tutorial I found on YouTube for assembling a gallery. It seems pretty straight forward.

The jQuery lessons on Codecademy seem pretty straightforward, but with a few reviews and practice it will be by far the most straightforward and easy to comprehend. You could literally watch the code structure from the lesson notes and get through most of the questions. Much of the code follows similar patterns, making it the quickest to get through. After the week’s jQuery lessons, I as usual re-enforced the tutorial by watching a few YouTube videos from mmuts’s channel he has a lot of helpful tutorials on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and other pertinent coding programs. Check him out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?BaIgTKj1iCQ

I think my greatest concern is how to stay on top with the new coding programs while  perfecting the earlier programs. I realize there’s a likelihood of forgetting some of the previous lessons, especially JavaScript, which is the most challenging. I was wondering whether it is possible for a programmer to be solely proficient in jQuery and not JavaScript, yet be able to create great stuff without problems.

I’m really looking forward to bringing together all the various coding languages to produce something great. For my final project, I’m looking at developing a unique news websites that is visually appealing and fun for visitors to explore. I will want it to look something like this or better: https://blexing2.wixsite.com/mysite. I put this together on wix.com earlier. so far I doubt whether I can pull that off yet, but hopefully soon.

This week’s introduction to JavaScript lessons highlighted basic concepts on variables, data types in JavaScript (strings, boolean, numbers, null, undefined, symbols, and objects.). How to create a variable and functions, also the ES6 upgrade to the “let and const” to  fix the global scope flaws in the variables, arithmetic operations (+ ,- ,* ,%, / , ++ ,–) and how they can be used in JavaScript. I did learn a new word “concatenation” that uses the + operator to join two or more strings together. The quotations and spaces were a little tricky at first, but then they introduced  (“), which I personally prefer because it makes the codes simpler.

The biggest challenge was remembering when to punctuate codes. Also, the “if, if else, and the else” conditions were a bit confusing at first. As a whole I think  learning programming can be likened to learning a new language. The more you speak the better you become and the reverse is also true.

I am looking forward to learn and explore more of JavaScript.

This week’s assignments and reading point to one significant element in programming and coding for me: “every single thing matters.” It was so evident how a single omission can disorganize and in some cases throw the entire piece of work out of order. If there is one single  lesson from this assignment, it will be to practice regularly. There seem to be so many rules and elements for both HTML and CSS that it requires consistent practice and review.

The biggest challenge for this week was linking my HMTL file to the CSS in Sublime. I watched a series of tutorials using the link tag but to no avail. The CSS tutorial from Khan Academy worked the magic for me. I began by creating a style tag (<style></style>) and immediately the expected changes would be displayed. I also had a challenge with adding a downloaded image element to my HTML. The HTML file in the browser captured the image but it wouldn’t display. It was a bit frustrating at first because all the elements seem to be in the right place. After watching a few tutorials, I realized it was not peculiar to me. The experience from GitHub seems pretty straightforward, but I have yet to understand how it can be effectively used in my future projects.

I reckon, I’m beginning to get a sense of how things are and that’s pretty exciting and fulfilling as this is my first time doing anything web related like this. Being able to somewhat comprehend the HTML hierarchy and somehow getting bits and pieces of the CSS rules and how they relate gives me a lot of hope for what is ahead, as I look forward to learn from everyone.

My main takeaways from this week’s readings were simplistic descriptions and analogies by Mindy McAdams on programming. Her conversational approach to programming and code were particularly refreshing and easy to grasp. The next article and its Website=House analogy and it’s picturesque slides made it more comprehensible. Also the introductions of elements, attributes and structure of tags (open <p> and closed </p> tags) and how the concept can be related to our everyday lives was so helpful.

I think the most abusive tool for me this week was the web inspector. I have umpteen times checked and changed the HTML of several websites just to see how what will happen and it was a pretty cool experience :). Sarah disagrees lol. Codecademy’s split screen for instructions, coding and display shows in real time how the tag hierarchy relates to each other and how a glitch in the arrangement can alter the whole hierarchy. Their website is beginner-friendly, with hints to help you along the way should you get stuck on an exercise. GitHub seem pretty straight forward with the creation of a repository and committing to projects. I hope to explore and learn more about its operations as the course progresses in the weeks ahead.

The internet has been grossly been interpreted by many and has hence created the idea that, its nuance and supposedly complex nature  are solely designated to a few tech-savvy professionals who somehow have special skills to demystify these complexities. The readings, from how the internet works through the various philosophies of the software companies, allayed my fears as a not so tech-savvy type.

It was particularly refreshing to note that many in the tech industry are acutely aware of the general perception about the internet and have been working on simplifying our view and experience on their systems. That was a huge sigh of relief for me, especially having held the notion that this area of study is a reserve for a few.

My ultimate take aware is that the internet is, and will always be, a continuum. Understanding and working the internet is an unending enterprise that requires frequents updates of information, just as applications and software do.