Code Moms

4. Setting Goals to Keep Us on Track

January 14, 2014

It is the start of a new year now.  We have already been learning code for a few months, but now it is the perfect time to set a goal to keep us on track.  Our goal?  500 hours of learning code for 2014.  We figured if we commit to at least two hours a day, five days a week, this is definitely a goal we can achieve.

To keep us motivated, we decided to make a “Tower of Code” board.  On it, we pasted 500 blocks (from printed sheets with 50 blocks each).  Every month will have a different color.  Each block will have initials for what we are learning (right now, it’s Javascript, HTML and CSS).  Having the tower out next to our workstation keeps us motivated to keep working.  I can’t wait until the board is full of colors!

6. Learning by Doing

Feb 23, 2014

We are taking steps each day to move up the code path.  To date, we have accumulated 70 hours of learning (our yearly goal is 500).  We are currently taking a CSS module with Treehouse.  After going through lessons on Selectors, Pseudo Selectors, Lists and Font Styles, my son and I decided to take an afternoon to practice what we learned so far.  My son worked on his web page and I updated my site.  When I first launched it three weeks ago, my web page was made with only HTML code that had some in-line styling.  

Now that we had a bit of CSS under our belt, we were able to add color, style fonts and text, hover on hyper-links,  and make links active.  I had to go back through my notes to find out how to code what I wanted to do. It took longer than I expected but by “doing” it, we were learning.  I cannot stress how important it is to keep good notes and stay organized. As I worked on CSS, it was exciting to try different codes and see them appear in the window.  We are at the beginning stages of our code path.  I know we have a long way to go on this journey with more challenging modules, but it is rewarding to actually create something with code that I can launch and see.

We like going up the path at our own pace, stopping to investigate, re-watching lessons as we need, taking the time to organize, and practicing what we learn.  Now we are ready for the next stretch.  Still on track.  Onward we go. 

8. Detour - Debugging

March 14, 2014

After learning about linear gradients on Treehouse, which  blends two colors on a web page background, I decided to add it to my codemoms project.  Yet, when I tried to add the code, it only covered half my page and not the entire background.  What was I doing wrong?  I had to stop on my path to figure this out before I went any farther.  It was a detour worth experiencing.

I learned that there are sites that will check your code for errors.  This is very helpful since we are remote students with no teacher in the room to look at our work.  So I uploaded my html file to the W3C Markup Validator.  WC3 checked my code and informed me that I had more than one error (I won’t say how many).

Even though my web page was functional, I could see that the code was not really clean. The validator helped me go through my code, line by line, and understand my mistakes.  When I reloaded my html, it said I passed.  Yay!

The big lesson we learned today is that coding needs to be clean, lean and orderly.  I am so glad that we had this detour at an early stage of our trek, so we can build good work habits.  So, after cleaning up my markup and learning a lot, we’re ready to hit the trail.

10. Never Ever Give Up

May 15, 2014

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ~Confucius

This quote says it all.  We have been moving steadily up the path and we are making good progress. The terrain is hot and dry right now, but we are not turning back.  We continue to learn and practice code every day for two hours.  When we are not taking lessons, we are practicing, debugging, reviewing, or updating our spreadsheet of notes.  There is no easy path to learning code.  It just takes time.

The more we learn, the more we see how much more we need to learn.  Wrapping my head around the CSS concepts of: elements, attributes, pseudos, properties, classes, id’s, links, nesting, boxes, divs, structure, webkits, bugs, syntax errors, etc. – is a lot.  We have to just keep doing it until it becomes second nature.  I know we will get there.

Yet, even as we walk through this desert, we see beauty and promise.  We learn something new every day.   The pieces start to make sense.  It might take a while until we reach the next valley of trees, flowers and shade.  But we will not give up – ever.  When we get discouraged, we look at Our Tower of Code (which is slowly filling up with colored boxes) and it gives us motivation to keep on trekking.  

12. Reflection at the Midway Point

July 21, 2014

We are midway to our yearly goal of learning 500 hours of code. I stop on the trail and reflect on how far we’ve come. Even though we have learned a lot, we know that the mountaintop we seek is many miles ahead.  We won’t be there at 500 hours – not even close.  We know that there is no quick way up there – we just need to keep moving forward.  Already planning on our next 500 hours in 2015.

Here at this point, we are happy to have learned so much so far:  HTML, CSS, Javascript and Photoshop. Our goal is take our time and retain this knowledge.  After we watch the tutorials, we take notes and practice, practice, practice.  We even give each other code challenges.  And then we practice more.  One thing that is clear to me right now:  the more we learn, the more we see how much more there is to learn.

A good method we found is the Three Steps to Retention”  1. Learn it;   2. Do it;   3. Teach it.  We keep cycling through these steps and it really helps us absorb what we are learning.  Working as a team helps us stay motivated and productive.

14. 500 Hours of Code - Brick by Brick

Dec. 31, 2014

It feels good to see our Tower of Code filled all the way up.  500 hours!  That seems like a lot of hours, but it really just breaks down to working those two hours a day.  We created it the beginning of the year with paper grids, markers  and foam board.  It has been our visual reminder throughout the year to keep motivated and to stay on track.  And now that it is complete, we can be proud.

It’s been a great first year, but we’re really just starting.  There is so much more to learn.  Throughout this time, we have held the motto, “Never, ever give up.”  That’s what it really takes to learn code.  We have to keep trying until we ‘get it.’  I’m still working on learning Javascript. We want to keep learning until we ‘get it’ and then we can move on.

I heard one of the local football players commenting on his attitude about facing obstacles. He said, “You don’t set out to build a wall. Instead you say, I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.  You do that every single day and soon you have a wall.”

This is a great metaphor for anyone facing a challenge.  Learning code is a challenge, but we are laying those bricks every day. Our path still has a long way to go.  The mountain is high and we keep moving forward. Next week, we will create another Tower of Code with another 500 hours. Let’s see where the path takes us. Brick by brick.

16. Follow Your Intuition. It Already Knows. . .

July. 2, 2015

A quote from Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford: “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

This quote really resonates with me because our future is an unknown. We don’t know where we will be in a year or two, but we do know that we both love to code. We are halfway through 2015 and taking stock. We are on track with our hours and continuing to learn - currently jQuery and more Javascript. We don’t really know yet where this code path will lead us, but we trust that “the dots will connect.”

One thing we know for sure is that we need to keep our momentum and passion alive as we move into the intermediate levels. Trusting our intuition is key. We are not afraid to pivot and switch trails when we explore a path that is not connecting with us or we are not ready for. And we have been discovering trails off the path by our natural curiosity.

Lately, we have been building small projects on our own as we practice and implement everything we’ve learned to date, We start each week off with our code challenge goals. A typical day for us these days goes like this:

“What cool thing can we build today? Let’s see if we can do what this site does. How did they do that? Let’s research that. Let’s try it. No, that didn’t work. Why not? Let’s try something else. No, that definitely did not work. OMG, I completely ruined my code! Let’s debug. Let’s check it out with Google Dev Tools. No wonder - it’s got a ‘fatal error,’ “

“Better back-track with some of our trusty resources (Treehouse, Code Academy, Code School, Github, jQuery documentation, W3C, and more). We need to rewatch that tutorial. Let’s try it again. And again. And again. We’re not moving on until we get this. Scratch that way, let’s try it this other way. OMG! it worked! That only took hours and days, but hey - we got it.”

Now we’ve got more of those dots to line up our path. We are doing what we love and the dots will eventually connect. “Let’s go that way. Do you think we can do that?” 

18. Making A New Code Trail

June 1, 2016

My how time flies! We are still on the code path, and are looking out over a scenic view. It has been ten months since our last blog and a lot has happened.

2015 ended with another 500 hours of learning code. Our Mountain of Code visual board was filled up to the top. We spent the rest of the year creating mini practice projects and working with different jQuery plugins. We also continued our tutorials on Wordpress.

When January rolled in, we decided that year three would be our “Internship Year.” We were at a point where we were ready to utilize these skills and start building a portfolio. But before we started to delve into building a project, we decided to first do some research. What makes a website good?

We spent some time investigating numerous websites and developers. A few of the things we looked at (but not all) were: investigating the code through Google Developer Tools, doing speed checks to see how fast pages load, checking W3C code validation, was the site Wordpress or custom, was it responsive (surprisingly, there are many that are not), and was the design user friendly.

So this year, the interns have been truly learning by doing. We built a new visual board, called “The House of Code.” We have been working on our first project, an art site. It is custom with a Bootstrap framework, it has a jumbotron slider and a lightbox art gallery.