I like that we are beginning to see results on our own webpages, because the conceptualization can only get you so far. I feel like we have learned a new foreign language (or several!) in a short period of time, and only now are we starting to talk to anyone in those languages.

One of the greatest skills in a work environment (like mine) with coders and management is the ability to be a liaison between the two. Seriously. Coders talk in these funny languages and everyone else talks in English (or French, or Spanish, etc) and usually neither side takes the initiative to try and understand the other. The ability to understand “code-speak” and translate it into real results is a highly valued commodity, and I think that this class is beginning to make it a reality for us.

In my normal coding experience, we specialize so deeply that once we send the code to production, we simply move onto the next project and rarely see the end result. To be honest, I have never really cared because all of the work I do refers to life insurance accounts and how their algorithms work. It has never really engaged me more than the simplicity of my work, and I have always wanted to get out of that business (hence journalism!), but with this class, it has brought me back to why I started learning about computers in the first place. I am very excited about what we are doing, and have already been envisioning building the website to host several things that can be related to a new business and journalism at the same time.

I really think it’s amazing how the languages for computers are so similar, but yet do such different things. It makes it easy to learn a new language (as in learning JavaScript after learning CSS, after learning HTML). It builds upon the last language you learned and makes options more accessible with the more that you learn.

I am worried a bit about getting confused with the syntaxes. I began with COBOL years ago and have become comfortable with it, but it is so similar to JavaScript and HTML that sometimes I find myself writing in one of the languages that I shouldn’t be (as in writing HTML in JavaScript or vice-versa). I am confident that with practice it gets easier, but for the beginner in any language, it is frustrating to constantly be checking to make sure that I am writing in the correct syntax as well as learning the new functions and other options.

Once the learning curve is adjusted for, I found JavaScript to be quite exciting, because it is a language which is intended to “do things” on a web page. I like the abilities of HTML, but JavaScript has the commands that make actions occur, and that type of visual feedback is comforting at a base level for me. It reminds me of the contrast to the frustrations of both HTML and COBOL, where if the code doesn’t work the computer just sits there. That meme that you sent us about the coder’s code working and having no idea why was very amusing and reminded me of many of my colleagues (and if I’m being honest, me!).

I like the slow pace of the Codeacademy, because it is actually teaching a lot of material very quickly, but it makes it seem manageable and not overwhelming. I remember (and STILL have) many of those fat language books you referred to in class (right now I can see three COBOL books, an HTML for Dummies and a SQL book weighing down my bookshelf). The manner I learned COBOL was a trial by fire (and almost fired…) that really made me feel that it is so hard to pick up a language cold, and I wish I had found the codeacademy long ago.