Erin Learns to Code

What now..

I'm still feeling pretty lost in terms of what my next steps are.  I was hoping this weekend would clarify some concrete next steps but I don't feel like I quite figured that out. 

My original plan was developing a personal resume website as practice, which is probably doable, but I'm really hoping that there's some way for me to use both front and back end to make the site work.  I need to talk to people about that, because I'm very lost on how you actually deploy a website. 

Codecademy's Python course is going to be my next project.  Codecademy just did a whole redesign and have been emailing me daily to remind me that I'm not doing enough to learn, so it's probably time to placate them anyways.  

I wanted to work on projects on Github, but I really don't know where to begin there.  I started the demo and realized that I didn't even know what a git is.  That'll probably be something I start working on a little later once I figure out a good plan.  A friend of a friend at Code for America said that this was the best way to learn, so I'll definitely give it a chance but I'm not sure if I'm there yet.  

After my full weekend of GA's Programming Bootcamp, I think it's fair to say that I love coding.  Being in a room full of real beginners struggling through the concepts together was more valuable than I realized.  Many of them have been working in tech companies for years and are looking to get a better understanding of their developers, so I felt like I learned a lot beyond just coding.  

Major takeaways from the weekend:

1. CSS and HTML is really, really fun: At least on the beginner level.  Twin Peaks gifs? Hipster Lorem Ipsum? A place to put the picture of Albert Einstein in fuzzy slippers that has been saved on my computer? I really enjoyed that. 

2.  Huge respect for web developers: I had no idea it was so hard to move things around a webpage.  I mentioned Wix to the developer teaching the course and he could barely contain his distain.  After trying to get my sidebar to stay in place for awhile, I understand what he means.  

3.  Amazing resources available for free: Balsamiq for mockups, W3 Schools for every random question that came to mind, Bento for tutorials and so many more

4. Back end coding is dull:  Sunday was spent entirely on back end coding and I could barely stay awake.  No more gif-browsing for me. We coded in Ruby and used the Sinatra library to make it easier to get things done.  I'm still very confused about syntax.. learning such high-level overviews of so many things in a weekend probably was a little over ambitious.  

Languages allow us to communicate with computers through series of commands.  Different languages exist for different use cases and have different functionalities.  Here's a really cool map of how languages evolved: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/posters/tongues/tongues.jpg

Libraries (this was more confusing to me), also known as modules, packages, or gems depending on what language you're using, packages these commands so functions can be performed without users knowing exactly how they're working.  These libraries can be found on Github and the authors are constantly editing them to make them better for users. 

Websites can be static or dynamic.  Static websites give information, but don't have the level of customization or interactivity that dynamic websites do.  Most websites are a mix of both.  

Mobile applications have to be specialized to the device for full functionality. Apparently iOS7 and Android have their own codes and there isn't a good solution for cross platform language translation without losing some important elements of the code. 

I've been wanting to learn to code for a long time and never knew where to start.  There are plenty of resources out there and I've tried to start an online course or make a Codecademy account several times and it never stuck.  My first week in Intro to Computer Science was terrifying.  Apparently Intro to Computer Science wasn't meant for those of us who REALLY didn't know how to code, according to the professor, and after that I started to give up somewhat.