Learning to Code: Reflections: 2015

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Day 164: "JavaScript & JQuery" by Jon Duckett

Today I'm starting on page 64 of the JavaScript & JQuery book by Jon Duckett.

I'm on pg 96 now. I learned that you can have a function return two results, by using an array. The example os on pg 95 of the book, it's neat.

I made a commitment to finish the book by the 5th, because I've got to start making progress again on the Pomodoro Clock project.

It's 11:06 p.m., December 31st, the new year is about to start. I'm going to eat 12 grapes and make 12 wishes in a moment (it's a Spanish custom).

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Total Treehouse Points: 5,503
Treehouse Points by Subject Matter (Miscellaneous not included):
HTML: 663
CSS: 1,599
Design: 1,193
Development Tools: 747
JavaScript: 1,239

Treehouse Ranking (%): "You have more total points than 93% of all students."

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Aesthetic Foundations
Design Foundations
Adobe Photoshop Foundations
Adobe Illustrator Foundations (66% complete, switched focus from web design to web dev)
Console Foundations
Git Basics
Introduction to Programming
JavaScript Basics

Codecademy (& other) Courses Completed:
HTML and CSS (Codecademy)

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

Completed: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 96 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: I switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

My Progress on Free Code Camp (FCC):
1. Get Started with Free Code Camp Complete
2. HTML5 and CSS Complete
3. Responsive Design with Bootstrap Complete
4. Gear up for Success Complete
5. jQuery Complete
6. Basic JavaScript Complete
7. Object Oriented and Functional Programming Complete
8. Basic Algorithm Scripting Complete
9. Basic Front End Development Projects On 4 of 5
10. Intermediate Algorithm Scripting On 4 of 21 (#13 and #14 also done)
11. JSON API's and Ajax
12. Intermediate Front End Development Projects
13. Claim Your Front End Development Certificate
14. Upper Intermediate Algorithm Scripting
15. Automated Testing and Debugging
16. Advanced Algorithm Scripting
17. AngularJS
18. Git
19. Node.js and Express.js
20. MongoDB
21. Full Stack JavaScript Projects
22. Claim Your Full Stack Development Certificate

After the 800 hours of FCC work above, there are 800 more hours of non-profit coding projects.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 2

Total Hours Coding: 752

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Day 163: Bill 'n' Bonnie's Website

All right, since I finished the book yesterday, I'm starting today by going over mobile first design briefly, and then I'm coding up the website for Bill and Bonnie, a married couple here who are mobile mechanics. It will be super basic, the main reason for it is simply to have something for people that find Bill and Bonnie on Yelp to click on. That, and for me to have a project I can start from zero to finish by myself, using mobile-first design principles. Later on, perhaps I'll add some special effects with JavaScript or JQuery.

For the mobile site, we can use max-width, and for the desktop site, we can use min-width. Now, for the in-between site, we can do this:

<style>
  @media (min-width: 500px) and (max-width: 600px) {
    h1 {
      color: red;
    }
  }
</style>

So that covers all the page widths between 500px and 600px. I'll be using a mobile-first design approach, so the first thing I'll do is design the mobile site, then build up from there. Once it's all designed, I'll code it up and deploy it. All right, let's get started!

O.k., I'm done with the site, I made it super basic, and I also made a Yelp account for Bonnie, that will be the more important thing, as people will actually be able to find her. Here's the yelp site:

And here's the actual site:

I also read 64 pages of the JavaScript book, it was lots of basics, nothing I don't already know, so I won't make any notes of it, but that's where I'll start my next entry.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

Completed: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: I switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 6

Total Hours Coding: 750

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Day 162: "HTML & CSS," by Jon Duckett

All right, I left off on page 393 last time, so that's where I'lll start off today. The current theme is grid-based layouts, which is great, because I really wanted to go over that again.
The book went over the 960 grid system and how to use multiple stylesheets, if desired. If we link to CSS and also use the @import rule within the CSS, the rest of the code in the CSS style sheet takes precedence over the code within the @import rule (because we always place the @import rule at the top of the CSS file, and the CSS below it, being after, would take precedence.

We went over how the new HTML5 elements are treated as inline element by older browsers, and the code we should enter to avoid this issue.

All right, I finished the book. It did not go over media queries, so I'll have to refresh on that. I'm thinking I will code and deploy the mobile mechanic website tomorrow. That, or start on the "JavaScript & JQuery" book.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

Completed: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: I switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 4

Total Hours Coding: 744

Friday, December 4, 2015

Day 161: "HTML & CSS," by Jon Duckett

All right, I'll do the website after I finish this book, in case I want to apply more of the HTML5 on my site, and just to see if I can learn a bit more that will allow me to add some features to the site. The site's going to be deploying live, and it's more work to deploy and make changes to a live site, so I want to make sure I've got a good product before it's deployed.

I'm up to pg 393 of the book now, and I'll stop there today. It's been a great refresher so far, my goal is to finish the book tomorrow and perhaps the webpage as well.

I went over the float and clear properties, which was great, as well as the z-index, positioning, fonts, colors, and many other HTML and CSS basics. My blog notes on the book are sparse, but that's because most of the content is material I already understand and have actually blogged about earlier.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

In Progress: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett (On pg 393 of 490)
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: I switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 6

Total Hours Coding: 740

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Day 160: "HTML & CSS," by Jon Duckett and Bill and Bonnie's Website

I got a ticket yesterday (for my registration being expired) and I had to go get my car horn fixed today (to get my inspection, to then get the registration, I think that's how it works), and while there, I was chatting up my mechanics, Bill and Bonnie. I really like them a lot, they're good folks, so I told them I'd build them a website. They're great mechanics, but not many people know they exist because they have virtually no web presence. So, this will be a charity project, I'll deploy the site, then perhaps add features to it later as I level up my skillset. I'll also make them a yelp page, since they don't have one of those either.

So, I'm going to approach this project from a mobile-first perspective. Here's the layout breakpoints I'll use:

Layouts

Default
Min-width: 780px
Tablet Portrait (to landscape and desktop)
Min-width: 768px / Max-width: 979px
Smartphone
Max-width: 480px (using 800 px height for my mockup)

But before we can even write one line of code, I should be wireframing the site with Balsamiq, so I'll be doing that as well, I want this to be a professional job, not a haphazardly thrown together piece of work. So here's my first draft for the mobile version:

It's simple, but I like that, I wanted to give off a very non-corporate, mom and pop vibe, because that's how Bill and Bonnie are in real life. Now, under the image, I'll probably enter a little html5 <figcaption> element with a nice note about Billy and Bonnie's parrots. I thought of including an email, but no one emails their mechanic...then again, on a long repair, that could be useful...but then you could just text. Not including email meshes better with the folksy vibe of the page, but perhaps I should include it anyways. I'll mull it over.

So I'm thinking the site will be www.billnbonnie.com. It's easy to remember and it sounds more Americana than billandbonnie, which would be more generic. Here's the first draft of the full page layout, it uses a different focal image, and has a small gallery beneath it, the pics are pics I just took a few hours ago when I went to get my horn repaired, and it was a bit too sunny for pics, but that's what I've got to work with, so that's what we're going with!

I like it, it's super basic, but continues with the folksy theme. I'll make sure to add the new HTML5 <figure> and <figcaption> elements, as well as use alt values, in case the image doesn't load, and for users with some disabilities. So, here's the tablet version, from 768px to 969px:

I'm not too sure on that one, I've never really done a table layout before. You know, I really like the mobile one because it captures Bill and Bonnie's personality. The large one is stylish, but the focus is then removed from Bill and Bonnie, and it feels somewhat lost. Meanwhile, the tablet version is something of a balance between the two. Also, I plan to use black letters with a white outline, as that's readable on any picture background. What's interesting is that I keep making modifications here and there, and if I had started the process by coding instead of by using Balsamiq, every modification would have been a LOT of work. Using Balsamiq so that I have a finished product, or as close to a finished product as possible, before I write one line of code, is the way to go. This also applies to solving algorithms, I've been jumping in and solving the problem as I write it, somewhat, but I see that writing up some pseudocode would be a fantastic way to make the algorithm-solving experience more efficient.

This project is helping me a lot. I've looked at a couple of other mobile mechanic sites, for inspiration, and they have a lot more content, with prices and such, but Bonnie and Bill prefer to be called and see what the problem is before they extend a quote, so I won't add those sections. I'm not planning on using Bootstrap on this project...but perhaps I should finish the HTML & CSS book before coding everything up, to make sure I'm as standards-compliant as I can be.

I'll work on that tomorrow morning, I'm going to take a break now. In addition to the work above, I got up to page 209 of the book today.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

In Progress: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett (On pg 209 of 490)
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: Switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 5

Total Hours Coding: 734

Friday, November 20, 2015

Day 159: "HTML & CSS" by Jon Duckett

All right, I'm on page 187 of the book, it's early (10:37 a.m.), let's see how much I can knock out today.

When using <div> elements, it may be helpful to add a note next to the closing tag, to note which div is being closed, for example:

</div>

That's a useful tip, since it's common to fill div elements with other div elements and then lose track of which closing tag belongs to which opening tag. I haven't used the <span> element too often, but basically, it's used to tag content within another element, say, text within a paragraph. You can then give the span an id and apply CSS to it.

The term iframe is an abbreviation for inline frame.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

In Progress: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett (On pg 191 of 490)
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: Switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 2

Total Hours Coding: 729

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Day 158: "HTML & CSS," by Jon Duckett

O.k., today I'm starting on page 155 of the "HTML & CSS" book, which deals with input elements. I really want to continue with the FCC problems, but I've got to refresh a lot of my HTML and CSS knowledge.

According to an answer on Quora by FCC's founder, of the 142,513 campers (students) going through Free Code Camp, 208 have earned the Front End Dev Certificate, while 22 have earned the Full Stack Dev Certificate. That's a tiny percentage, about .14 for the front end cert and about a tenth of that for the full stack cert. Here's a screenshot:

Knowing this gives me quite a jolt of motivation. Completing FCC puts you squarely in a very small, elite group of campers. That's good stuff.

So, HTML5 is introducing form validation via the browser. That's new. At the time of the book's writing, only Chrome and Opera supported HTML5 validation. I'm on page 179 of the book now, it goes over forms in general, and HTML5 improvements to them in specific.

This is the DOCTYPE declaration that is used for HTML5 documents:

<!DOCTYPE html>

After that would go the <html> opening tag, then the <head> and <body> opening and closing tags, with the tags containing the content of each within, and at the end of the document, the closing </html> tag. Comments in HTML 5 are placed inside the document like so: . I should be using comments much more than I currently am, as creating code in a work environment often involves collaboration, and it's not always easy for another person to understand someone else's code.

HTML id attributes can begin with any letter or an underscore, but must have a unique name. Attributes should use lower case letters. If we want to give an element multiple classes, we can separate the classes with a space (but put all the classes in the same set of quotes).

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

In Progress: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett (On pg 187 of 490)
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: Switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 2

Total Hours Coding: 729

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Day 157: "HTML & CSS" by Jon Duckett

O.k., I'm stuck on FCC on an algorithm problem on objects. I'm also stuck on the pomodoro clock project, which involves combining JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and JQuery. Since I'm stuck there, my current strategy is to complete "HTML & CSS" and "JavaScript & JQuery," both by Jon Duckett, thereby expanding my knowledge on the four subjects, and then attempt the problems again.

I'm still sick, I've been sick several days now since I got back to America, as the climate is much drier and colder here than in the Philippines, and I'm adjusting. I've been spending most of my day in bed and drinking a lot of water. Being back in America is a big change from the Philippines, and I've been spending time re-assessing my goals and how my time is spent. Web Development, becoming proficient at it, is my focus, and I'm even more motivated now to continue with it. Life's good, my cough not withstanding.

Today I'm starting on page 101 of "HTML and CSS." All right, let's go!

IMAGES:

O.k., when setting image sizes in our code, we should do so in pixels, not in inches. SVG and bmp file formats are used for saving vector images, which can be increased in size without losing any quality, because they are made up of lines with colors filling in the space between the lines (think of a logo).

This is all basic stuff that I already know, but it's a nice to refresh my knowledge. Oh, this is new, HTML5 has introduced a new <figure> element, it's used to wrap an <img> and a <figcaption></figcaption> element, so that the caption for an image can appear right below the image. Sometimes, browsers indent the contents of the <figure> element. If an image uses flat colors, saving it as a GIF is ideal, while photographs are for JPEG's.

TABLES:

All right, so these next sections deal with tables in HTML. I went over table headings <th></th>, table rows <tr></tr>, and table data <td><td>. We also used the colspan and rowspan attributes, like so, <td rowspan="2"></td> or like so, <tr colspan="3"></tr>. These are used to have a td element span several columns or rows. When you do that, you omit the unnecessary td elements. All these elements belong inside of a <table></table> element. That element then contains a <thead></thead> section followed by a <tbody></tbody> section. Here's an example:

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Date</th>
<th>Income</th>
<th>Expenditure</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>10th of January<th>
<td>20</td>
<td>40</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
<tfoot>
</tfoot>
</table>

That's an example similar to the example in Mr. Duckett's book. Not that empty cells in the top left should still be inserted as a table head element, <th></th>. Note that th elements should have a scope attribute, like so:

<th scope="col"></th>

or

<th scope="row"></th>

These indicate whether the th is for a row or column.

FORMS:

With forms, the method attribute is used, and it will have a property of "get" or "post." Get is used for short forms and to retrieve data from the server (as opposed to sending information to add or delete from the server). Post is used for more complicated things, like when passwords are sent, to upload a file, or to add information to or delete information from a database.

O.k., that's enough for today, starting up again tomorrow.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Books Read or in Progress:

Completed: "Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman

Completed: "A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers

In Progress: "HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett (On pg 155 of 490)
In Progress: "JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett (on pg 0 of 622)

My Progress on The Odin Project:

1. Introduction to Web Development 100% Complete

2. Web Development 101 33% Complete
Note: Switched to FCC for the great online community and better updates/support.

Hours Spent Coding Today: 3

Total Hours Coding: 727