Going into this class, I had absolutely no knowledge of what coding looked like or how it functioned (besides on MySpace). I really hope to get two major things out of this class. The first thing I’d like to do is be able to communicate with coders/programmers so that I’m not that annoying person coming to them frequently to do the easiest task ever. I’d also like to be able to create and manage my own portfolio website. I know this is pretty easy to do on WordPress, but actually knowing how to troubleshoot and how to make my site more unique is a skill I think it wouldn’t hurt to have. This may come off a little selfish, but it seems like the more you can say you know in this industry, the better of a brand you have created for yourself. It would be very gratifying for me to be able to list that I know HTML (or at least the basics of it).

I doubt very many people are reading our blog, but if they are, I do have a word of advice: If you have the opportunity to learn how to code in high school or college, go for it. I remember having a class similar to this in undergrad, but being an athlete, I — embarrassingly enough — was able to pass the course with flying colors with “help” from my tutor. I was practically handed a site to turn in by the end of the course and learned nothing besides the fact that I never wanted to take that course again. I can’t say I’ll leave this class being a master coder or even wanting to continue to pursue programming, but I do realize how important it is that I know the basics of what’s really going on behind all of these web pages.

Like most first classes, we started out by introducing ourselves and our purpose for being in the class. What stood out to me though is that this was the first time I’ve been in a class and everyone had close to the same experience and hopes for the class. It’s nice to go into this class with people on similar levels because it will be that much more gratifying to see where we all started and where we’ll finish. It seemed like most of us are taking this class to be able to troubleshoot and manage our own portfolio pages, so we may even be able to help one another at some point.

We didn’t even touch our computers this class so I’m sure this sense of calm I have will be replaced by stress in the near future once we dive in. I like that Greg is realistic about this course and doesn’t seem to expect masterpieces from us. Most of the people I’ve talked to that know code have either taught themselves or felt like it was just their calling and learned it at a young age. The vibe I get from a course like this is that the learning is in our hands. Greg will give us the essentials on a platter but how good we get at it will be through just a lot of practice and searching ourselves. As much as I look foward to seeing my finished product (and others’ as well), it is all a little intimidating. I want my website to be this amazing site once we’re finished, but I’m comparing my hopes to work of coders’ that have done this for at least half of my life. Regardless, I am excited to see what this semester has in store for us.

I left this Codecademy lesson probably more confused than when I started. I found myself searching for whatever code would allow me to progress to the next page with very little to no grasp of what I actually did. No matter how many times I looked back on what I did, I could not figure out why or how I managed what it is I did.

My JavaScript experience in Codecademy was like night and day to how I felt when I had completed HTML. And yes, I do know that HTML and JavaScript should not be compared because we’re talking about two way different things, but it’s a pretty bad feeling to be sitting behind your computer for hours and still not feel that overwhelmingly short rush of victory once it is completed.

I would prefer the answers to be given to you at some point beyond just hints because at several points in this lesson, I found myself just completely off-track. I read one of Rob’s posts before and he made a good point that because there’s no such thing as really cheating, there is no reason why the answers could not be displayed somewhere. After hearing from our guest speakers, I understood that programmers often grab and add-on to other codes they find, so it’s not like it would take away from our learning if we had them as an option. By not having them, I found myself focusing more on how to complete this task on time, rather than really learning. Also, I’m curious if I’m just an extremely slow learner or if these assignments are taking everyone over 7 hours to figure this stuff out.

Now that I’ve complained this entire post, I will admit that I do understand why JavaScript is so necessary for a website to really catch and keep your attention. Even the most basic interactive websites use JavaScript and knowing that, I will continue to struggle but try as hard as possible to figure this out before the semester is over.

It has by far been the most frustrating weeks of learning in the web development course.

JavaScript is not the easiest to comprehend, and yet it accomplishes some of the greatest tasks on the Internet.

The Codecademy lessons were somewhat informative, but also not easy.

Due to a work/vacation trip I had to work on the lessons before Tuesday’s class. Learning from a written lesson is not the best way of learning for me, and the errors on Codecademy don’t provide much assistance. I found myself in the forums a lot looking for key pieces of information, evaluating other coders who also had broken code and comparing them to mine. I finished the lessons before Tuesday class which I imagined would give me a leg up in class, but I was sorely mistaken. There were a lot of key terms and lessons that weren’t even a part of the Codecademy section.

I appreciated Emily coming into the class and diving deep into JavaScript and the console. I think I learned a good amount from it. I’m sure I forgot a lot of it during the trip, so we’ll see how much I retained.

The image gallery we built was by far the biggest frustration so far. After three cups of coffee, 4 hours of googling and repeated cursing, I finally figured it out and it was the simplest work around I could have imagined. Thankfully it works and I never have to look at that gallery again.

General

I never thought web-development was going to be so complex. There are so many details, and different rules that you have to remember. It is a bit insane. So far I am enjoying learning the material, especially the stepping-stones: start with HTML (titles, body, and paragraphs), add some style to the verbiage which you create to make it lively through CSS (create ID’s, change fonts, change font-styles) and finally add some interaction to your HTML and CSS creations through JavaScript.

Codecademy

Codecademy is a great learning mechanism, it provides step-by-step instructions. The only functionality that is a somewhat disappointing is the hint feature. The feature seems to be hit or miss. Some of the exercise have very clear hints others are clear, but not at useful. I have truly learned to appreciate bloggers who have posted their Codecademy questions, especially the JavaScript paper, rock, scissor blogs. That exercise was pretty difficult in my book.

Questions

1. How long did it take you to learn how to code and what language did you start with?

2. What source can I look at to create a form? I want the webpage that I create for class to have a registration sheet which includes a name (first and last), address, phone number (required field), Date of birth, and a free text field which for medical history. Will we be learning about these features in class? Can these functions be written using HTML, JavaScript?

3. Is it possible to gather information from a registration page without a database? If yes, how? If no, which database option is the most effective?

4. What webpage do you recommend for leveraging tab features, specifically: home, about, contact us, testimonies

I am really excited about creating my own web-page, but at the same time am feeling overwhelmed, there is so much to learn.

When Greg sent us that funny little photo saying, “My code doesn’t work and I have no idea why. My code works and I have no idea why,” I had to laugh. I had just spent an hour trying to decode the JavaScript we’d hurriedly written in class enough to add captions with divs. I changed around some tags and parentheses for a while, and all of a sudden, after several iterations that made the photos all disappear, all appear, or refuse to flip, it finally worked. And I had no idea why. I couldn’t even remember what I’d changed that time – it didn’t seem more significant or profound than everything I’d tried before. It was almost more frustrating to see it work for a reason I couldn’t explain than to see it fail.

A couple of roadblocks this week…

This week was the hardest for me yet, and I found myself hitting the wall and reaching out to message boards more than I ever have before. Codecademy, where I had been breezing through in HTML and CSS, started to become more vague and confusing for me. In more and more cases, instead of saying, “type this,” the instructions were “do this.” I found myself looking back through past lessons and trying to find links to what I had learned and what they were asking me to do, but — no matter what — the code didn’t work. (In one case I think that there was an actual bug on the page, when I deleted all of my code and submitted it the display still came up with type as if there was code present). What I ended up having to do was go to the Codecademy forums and look line for line a code that did work, finally finding out how to structure something seemingly out of thin air.

I also had a lot of trouble with the captions, and figuring out how to attach them to the images so they wouldn’t be on the same page. Once again, I went to the message boards (and Google) to help me solve my problems.

What I learned was that I’m always going to have to rely on a community of experienced coders if I’m going to keep experimenting with new tricks. There are times when I’m going to get stumped and the instructions aren’t going to help me anymore, and I’m going to need to keep an open dialogue with others. Fortunately, the coding community is very responsive and friendly, and there is always someone who is able to look over your code and provide a fresh set of eyes.

Most of the time, especially in confusing JavaScript, one beginner’s mind isn’t enough.

This week’s assignments, though very basic, revealed the complex functions that help businesses and organizations interact with their clients, customers, readers, or viewers through the Internet – the most obvious example being the “creditCheck” assignment. It was easy to see how more complex code (specifically functions) can help businesses make decisions and process information quickly, remotely, and more accurately. There is no doubt in my mind that I will forever think about what is going on behind the scenes when I visit websites, having now had a glimpse into the “inner workings.”

I can see why these lessons are important to those, namely journalists, who use the Internet to interact with others for work. For example, just as one written word in a newspaper can change the entire meaning of an article, one piece of code can change the entire meaning of a web entry. Knowing and understanding the construct of that web page can help journalists prevent errors, and quickly correct those that are missed. This helps them maintain control of and protect their written word and personal brand, two things that are vital to journalists that are seeing more of their work on the Internet.

As far as Codeacademy is concerned, I like the method used to teach code on that site. However, there are parts that are extremely difficult and require one to go to the Q&A section for assistance. The problem is that not all of the answers given in the Q&A are correct, and it can be a little confusing. I would like to see a page where one could go to see exactly how the code should be written. It’s true, this could encourage users to cheat, but that seems to be exactly what web developers do anyway – use code that has already been written. So why not just let users see the answer, and let them retype it and manipulate it as they go through the courses?