Day 188: FCC, "Wikipedia Viewer," Udemy Videos on JSON/API's, Treehouse Video on AJAX

Today I'm continuing my work on the Wikipedia Viewer project, which requires me to retrieve data from the Wikipedia API via a search query entered by the user, and manipulate the data retrieved to display on the webpage.

So I started the day by watching a video on the Wikipedia API.  Now I'm going to watch some videos on Udemy that go over JSON and API's.  I've got to get a firm grasp on working with API's.

The courses are:

"JSON for Beginners: A Very Basic Introduction," 
"Ajax, JQuery and JSON for Beginning Web Developers," 
"Introduction to JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)," 

Also, CodeCademy has some courses on working with API's, so I'll be going through them as well.

This Wikipedia Viewer Project is the hardest of the API projects so far, but like the others, I'm sure once I complete it I'll think, "That was easy, why did it take me so long?"  That's just the way it goes with web dev.

I have been working on this project forever, but I made a great breakthrough today.  The data is now pulling on a click.  I know, it sounds simple, but I asked for help from like 5 people and no one could figure it out.  I finally cracked it, it was so simple, but it required the right problem solving approach to solve it.  It's 3:17 a.m., and I've got to wake up in less than 3 hours to drive to South Texas to visit my mom and dad tomorrow, so I'm going to try to sleep now.  I've easily put in well over 20 hours on this problem in the last 5 days, but I'm just going to leave it at 20 hours for the clock.

I watched some Treehouse Videos on AJAX.

I reached out for help several times over the course of this project, but no one could figure out the issue.

I finally figured it out, and I'll never forget the solution.  Feels great.  That said, I've still got a lot of work to do on the project, but it looks pretty straightforward from this point.  I'll pick up 

I learned a neat trick, if you do command / or command /, depending on which command it is, on the left or right of the keyboard, the code will become a note in JavaScript.  It's neat.

Two of the people I let know about The Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin have been accepted!  That's pretty great, it feels good to make a positive difference in people's lives.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Treehouse Points (5,503) by Subject Matter: 
HTML:                                663 
CSS:                                1,599 
Design:                            1,193 
Development Tools:            747 
JavaScript:                      1,239

Treehouse (and other) Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques
Aesthetic Foundations
Design Foundations
Adobe Photoshop Foundations
Adobe Illustrator Foundations (66% done, switched focus from design to web dev)
Console Foundations
Git Basics
Introduction to Programming
JavaScript Basics
HTML and CSS (Codecademy) 
Introduction to Web Dev (The Odin Project)
Web Dev 101 (The Odin Project, 33% done, switched to FCC for larger community)

Books Read or in Progress:                                                                     Status
"Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman                           Complete

"A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript," by Mark Myers                               Complete

"HTML and CSS," by Jon Duckett                                                             Complete

"JavaScript and JQuery," by Jon Duckett                                                 Complete

Free Code Camp (FCC)                                                                            Status

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                                                Complete

10. JSON API's and Ajax                                                                          Complete
11. Intermediate Algorithm Scripting                                                      Complete

12. Intermediate Front End Development Projects                                   On 3 of 6

13. Claim Your Front End Development Certificate

14. Advanced Algorithm Scripting
15. Automated Testing and Debugging
16. Git
17. Node.js and Express.js
18. MongoDB
19. API Projects

20. Dynamic Web Application Projects

21. Claim Your Back End Development Certificate

The Coding Boot Camp at UT Austin                                             Status (starts 4/19/2016)
Week 1-6: Mastering the Browser (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery) 

Week 7-10: API & JSON (RESTful API"s, parsing JSON, AJAX)

Week 11-14: Server Side (Node.js, MySQL, MongoDB)

Week 15-18: PHP (WordPress, CodeIgniter, Laravel) 

Week 18-21: Full Stack Coding
Week 22-24: Final Project

CodePen: http://codepen.io/Adancode/

GitHub: https://github.com/Adancode

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcamacho1
Team Treehouse: https://teamtreehouse.com/adamcamacho
Free Code Camp: http://www.freecodecamp.com/adancode

Hours Spent Coding In the Last Five Days: 20

Total Hours Coding: 932