Hi all,

To increase my posting frequency and to document the things I have learnt I am going to commit to the 100 days of coding challenge. The rules are simple code every day for 100 days, post about your progress on twitter to hold yourself accountable and go for it! If you want to find out more about this challenge and the creator here’s the website https://www.100daysofcode.com/

The pledge

Code minimum an hour every day for the next 100 days.

Tweet my progress every day with the #100DaysOfCode hashtag.

Whats next?

I’ll be tweeting my progress every day and I’ll be trying to write a progress report once a week. Below are some of the challenges I wish to complete during this time.

• Build Counter for 100 days of Code CodePen
• BootStrap and SASS refresh – FreeCodeCamp project
• Build a Drum machine add BootStrap – FreeCodeCamp project
• Build JavaScript Calculator refactor- FreeCodeCamp project
• Build a 25 + 5 clock – FreeCodeCamp project
• Redux tutorial and documentation – Redux
• React tutorial and documentation – React

Everything about https://overthewire.org/wargames/ was lovely from the 90s style hyperlink search that lead me to the site, to the website’s nostalgic and somewhat dated CSS. The site is a monument to people doing good, it still amazes me that people want to and are motivated enough to put together something this comprehensive purely for others to play and learn.

The site teaches you the bash command line through a series of games that give you everything you need to know to master it. The site is designed so that it does not just teach you the basic syntax but you learn why commands exist and how they interact with each other. Moreover the lessons help you understand the command lines place in the system and how it allows you to manipulate / navigate it.

The first game is a series of challenges that gets you to find hidden passwords. In each level you are on a remote system and to unlock the next location you have to find the password. Its basically an escape room but without walls. Navigating the remote file system really does make you feel like a hacker! I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about Linux based systems and bash.

Up to now I have predominantly used free code camp as a resource to structure my learning and dipping in to the Odin project , W3schools, and random googling for extra info. I have found the curriculum to be a wonderful resource but it is not always the easiest to follow and is not compete (not that i think the people at free code camp intended it to be a one stop shop) . So on the whole its a wonderful resource and i am able to fill the gaps with google, YouTube, stack overflow ect. So what complaint or grip am i leading up to?

After finishing each section HTML, CSS and Javascript I had to redo the lessons to fully understand the concepts and more over go to external resources to understand why i was doing certain things. In the first two instances i think that it was just a case of my learning style and needing repetition to commit the key words and concepts to long term memory. however when it came to the JS currriculm i found myself asking why a lot more. By watching Youtube vids and googling i found the answers and spent a long time redoing the JS curriculum. there is a lot of pain redoing old lessons and i question if it was the best use of my time.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

– Albert Einstein (I think)

The fact is some material just doesn’t jell with you as a learner and you’ll glean something from it but it’s just not as effective as another source. So here i am again but this time with React and Redux, i have finished the course but I wouldn’t be able to make an web app or website with it. So do i redo the lessons at FFC or do i take another route. What’s different this time is I know I can get good documentation and a tutorial from the source itself. So rather than spending hours going over old lessons I am going to take another approach. I am going to take a second glance over the FFC lessons, not spending too long asking why am I being shown X or Y. Then the new bit, follow the React documentation and tutorials.

I started this project as with all great projects, around midnight when I should have been asleep and not saying yes to any crazy idea that popped into my head. There seems to me an juxtaposition that a blog site about learning to code especially front end web development is made and hosted on WordPress!

Im not trashing word press, I think ultimately for what I wanted it was perfect. A quick template where i can put my content. But it didn’t stop the buyers remorse hitting hard. So what did I get for my £20 essentially three hours of my life where i didn’t have to code the site and at this stage it would have looked a little janky, check out my codepen if you don’t believe me. Also I got the domain though arguably i could have hosted it on Github and brought a cheap domain.

Anyway here we are at least for the year or until i code something better!

“Hello World”

So in an attempt to see my growth and hold myself accountable i have created this website to host my coding journey. I started learning to code in November of 2020 and tentatively picked up HTML and CSS on FreeCodeCamp. These guys are the best and run a charity that provides an amazing curriculum that will teach you the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript and much more. I owe them a lot!

So I picked up real steam with learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript in January and February this year since completing the FreeCodeCamp modules on these three languages I have not made as much progress as I would like. This blog will be a way of keeping myself accountable and on track, I am prone to wondering off on a new direction every now and then. I am currently working through the React and Redux documentation and plan on building a few projects with this technology.

The next couple of posts will be me jumping in to the React & Redux modules with FreeCodeCamp then using the awesome free documentation and tutorials provided b the creators, evil mega corp Facebook.

To solidify the commitment to coding regularly I will blog my progress each week and go through the concepts and projects I am working on. Secondly, I will be committing to the 100 days of code challenge. They have two rules:

1. Code minimum an hour every day for the next 100 days.
2. Tweet your progress every day with the #100DaysOfCode hashtag.

100DaysOfCode