finished: CSS: the Missing Manual, 4th ed

Mostly review, of course, but repetition causes things to sink in....

Hour of Code 2016

Truly uninspired logo

I was inspired to start this learn-to-code project in response to the 2013 Hour of Code.

• Laconic blog entry, "Hour of Code is Cool," 2013
• "One Year Later", 2014
• "Blank Semester Here", 2015
• It's now three years later. 2016

Three years later:

My daughter has entered a STEM-themed middle school where takes an excellent Python class twice a week, and loves it. She looks forward to working at Google some day.

Her father has finally moved out of the house, making new things possible for me.

This one was better

I am in the final projects stage of Free Code Camp's Front End Web Development Certificate, begun in summer 2015, after a year and a half of initial searching, experimenting, wandering. My blog post then saw a depressing estimate of three or four years to finish this "boot camp"-- if I could manage ten hours a week-- which I knew I could not. It's now 1.5 years later, and surprisingly, I am still at it; still at less than 10 hrs/week. My life has changed. Not yet enough; but it hasn't been 3-4 years yet either :)

2013 video featuring President Obama

Greater than Code

Podcasts help me have imaginary coworkers. I currently listen to:

• CodeNewbie - for cheerleading and an imaginary friendly conference, usually while doing housework. On episode 117 now. 
• BikeShed - so I can pretend I am overhearing more advanced coworkers and learning something by osmosis, usually while falling asleep
• Greater than Code - my newest thing, for cheerful imaginary coder friends

Meanwhile:

Making progress through the Simon Game project. Lost a week to a flu. But still have put in 6 hours so far.

Completed: "Build a Tic Tac Toe Game"

Finished the Free Code Camp Tic Tac Toe game assignment.

Thirteen hours of work, spread over three weeks.

I think I'm getting this

Midway through the Tic Tac Toe project, something shifted. Exactly today, at 11:00am. Something clicked. The worked started to be fun rather than painful. Partly because I have finally cleared enough other stuff out of my life that I can concentrate in sessions longer than 15 stolen minutes, at least on some days. But also partly because I finally know enough words so that I can speak. It's stopped being an exercise in frustration, and started being an act of building. One brick at a time. I have the bricks, and know where to get more.

Finished: "Build a Pomodoro Clock"

Finished the "Build a Pomodoro Clock" assignment. Kept a work log: it took me only 15 hours total, but those hours were stretched over two months (Sep 16-Nov 15).

A lot of other life change work was accomplished in those two months, though. I feel much more ready, in some unnameable way. No longer fresh off the boat, an alien in coderland. No longer a preschooler. Maybe a third grader now? :)

Or: I kinda know what I am doing. The gist of it. My brain no longer hurts. Now it is just about gaining practice and speed.

Date I started FreeCodeCamp: May 8, 2015. Eighteen months ago.
Date I started this "Hour of Code" project: June 23, 2014. Two years, four months ago.

Finishing that first FCC Certificate, especially in context with the other life changes, will be a milestone.

Not there yet.

Still to go:

• Tic tac toe game
• Simon game

Plus:

• Algorithm task I choked on last time
• Formal approval of certificate by FCCamp
• General cleanup of past work

#ILookLikeAnEngineer

Memories and followup from the fun last year.

Read: Year Without Pants (about wordpress.com)

Well, that was not as scary as the one before. But still entirely populated by young white men bonding over alcohol.

Completed: "Friendly Date Ranges" exercise

"Friendly Date Ranges" completed, without fanfare. About 3 hours I think. So, except the one I skipped,  I am now done with "Advanced Algorithm Scripting."

On to "Advanced Front End Development Projects", of which there are three. (Actually four, but the calculator one I finished back before they moved it to "advanced.")

Balked: Permutations exercise

For the first time at FreeCodeCamp, I hit a clear limit: no. I am not trained for this kind of mathematical thinking. I feel angry and hazed that this is even in the course, as if we are all supposed to be math majors before we begin. I am a long time out of school. Recursive algorithms make me feel headachy and nauseous. I am fine doing research to locate a solution, but I cannot obey "write your own code" or even pretend I understood it. I can find a solution, and copy and paste. I can check the tests to be sure they pass. But no, I am not going to implement Heap's Algorithm in Javascript. Not this year.

I'm skipping this one.

---

No repeats please

---

Return the number of total permutations of the provided string that don't have repeated consecutive letters. Assume that all characters in the provided string are each unique.

For example, aab should return 2 because it has 6 total permutations (aab, aab, aba, aba, baa, baa), but only 2 of them (aba and aba) don't have the same letter (in this case a) repeating.

Remember to use Read-Search-Ask if you get stuck. Try to pair program. Write your own code.

completed: "Inventory Update" exercise

Completed the FreeCodeCamp's Advanced Algorithm Scripting "Inventory Update" task.

Only two more "Algorithm Scripting" tasks left on their list, then three "Projects" (eg, build an online tic tac toe game). And then, apparently, it's time to "Claim Your Front End Developent Certificate."

It took me two weeks of calendar time to finish this "Scripting" task. (I forgot to record clock time.) FCCamp estimates those "Scripting" tasks at five hours each, and the "Projects" at 40 hours each. At that rate, if one 5-hour "Script" == 2 weeks, that implies one 40-hour "Project" == 16 weeks. If I have 5+5+40+40+40=130 "hours" --> 52 "weeks" left to go... That's a really long time. That put my estimated completion date-- for just the "Front End" portion of the curriculum-- at, uh, September 6, 2017. A year from now.

That's a long time away.

Ray of hope: I may finally have succeeded in restructuring my life to allow for more study time. We shall see what the coming weeks will bring.

(What if I could get five curriculum hours done in one week, instead of two?)
(What if I could get it done in one day, like a normal person???!!! So frustrated with my schedule/availability.)

Completed: "Exact Change" exercise

Completed the FreeCodeCamp's Advanced Algorithm Scripting "Exact Change" task. Took me less than three hours this time. (If you don't count the fact that my "finished" code very obviously could do with a major refactoring, tons of duplicated code in there, needs to be a loop instead of nine cut-n-pastes...) Still felt like way too long, but at least it wasn't three months.

Did it while attending a local coding meetup, my fourth time there, hopefully a new weekly habit.

Completed: 101 episodes of CodeNewbie

As of Episode 101, I have now listened to all the back episodes of the CodeNewbie podcast by Saron Yitbarek. (I started listening seven months ago.) It's wonderful to have something code-y to listen to while I wash the dishes, and to get the feeling of a sort of virtual conference/convention when I cannot attend any actual ones. Lots of interesting voices talking, transmitting connection and culture.

I plan to go back to the first episode and listen again, this time ideally following up on all the links in the Show Notes too.

I may also be ready to try adding the Bike Shed podcast to my dishwashing regimen. Good background chatter for me to absorb, especially since unlike so many "code newbies" I am not married to a programmer or working (in a non-tech role) alongside developers in the office. The content on Bike Shed is over my head, but not as much as it used to be.

(It's also, like CodeNewbie, talking a lot about Ruby on Rails. I am studying mostly Javascript as I follow the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, and I suspect I may be a Python person at heart. But at my level mostly it's the concepts and culture which are key and transferable, even in the syntax and some of the specific tools and words are not.)

Note to myself, repeated from last January: If I have time maybe I should try some of these too.

Completed: FCCamp "Use the Twitch.tv JSON API"

Still very weak on the front end prettiness. But calling it done for now.

Did that really only take me a month? It seemed longer. The previous one took four months. (In scraps of spare time.) Am I getting back on track???

Marissa Mayer book

Interesting.

Disrupted book

Well. That was interesting. And frightening.

Another image: code instructor at St Joseph

Hello Ladies! Do any of you have teaching experience (or inclinations) and want to share your skills with women in need? Are you interested in supporting gender equality in the tech field and eliminating economic class barriers for entry level jobs? I've been working for a great organization called Codetalk that offers a FREE 15 week intensive coding course for the women who need it most. We teach front end development, professional development and meditation techniques for general wellness. We're starting our 6th session in Sept and have recently been funded by Snapchat. Hours would be 8:30am - 1pm M-F. If you are interested you can check out this link and apply: https://www.smartrecruiters.com/STJOSEPHCENTER/93447609-codetalk-instructor

St. Joseph Center

Codetalk Instructor

Santa Monica, CAPart-time

Company Description

Background

Since 1976, St. Joseph Center has been meeting the needs of low-income and homeless individuals and families in Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista, and surrounding communities.  The Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization that assists people without regard for religious affiliation or lack thereof through comprehensive case management and integrated social service programs.  The Center enjoys broad-based community support as well as a sponsored relationship with its founders, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.  St. Joseph Center serves approximately 6,000 individuals annually.

Brief Description of Principal Activities

Multifaceted intervention, prevention, and education services are carried out at four sites on the Westside of Los Angeles.  St. Joseph Center’s integrated programs provide clients with concentrated and coordinated access to services according to the nature of their needs.

Intervention Services

Homeless Service Center

• Chronic Homeless Initiatives
• Bread and Roses Café
• Housing Services
• Senior Services
• Monetary Advisory Program
• Veterans Representative Payee Program
• Prevention and Education Services

Food Pantry

• Culinary Training Program
• Early Learning Center
• Youth Resource Team

Job Description

Collaborate and work with second instructor to oversee all on-site classroom instruction.

Help maintain all program curriculum, assignments, projects, homework, cheat sheets, assessments, and other materials & resources for class. This includes documenting and archiving lessons and lesson plans, creating new assignments and lessons as needed, managing all student resources in Google Drive and the Student Portal, and managing all other online class resources.

Update instructor and student logs daily with progress and student updates, keeping the gradebook updated and tracking daily attendance & tardiness, tracking all student progress and assessment scores, and producing midterm progress reports and final reports, and periodically meeting with students individually.

Provide feedback on all student projects and assignments. Work individually with students when necessary. Be available during breaks and before class for student support and additional assistance.

Be consistent with classroom policies, create contracts with student, and enforce policies, including student meetings, warning letters, and consistent communication with SJC case workers.

Able to work with a diverse range of students and learning abilities. Concerned with helping students understand the material and sensitive to the barriers students may be going through that affect progress. Passionate about the cause, aligned with the vision of the program.

Have proven competency and be able to teach the following subject areas:

• HTML
• CSS
• jQuery & Introductory JavaScript
• GitHub & Basic Command Line
• WordPress
• Migrating and Transferring Sites
• Familiarity with Agile/SCRUM Methodology
• Mac OS

Hours: 25 hours/week
Monday - Friday (9am - 1pm) Instruction & Lab = 20 hours
Monday - Friday (8am - 9am) Planning/Curriculum Prep/Student Logs = 5 hours

Qualifications

Have proven competency and be able to teach the following subject areas:

• HTML
• CSS
• jQuery & Introductory JavaScript
• GitHub & Basic Command Line
• WordPress
• Migrating and Transferring Sites
• Familiarity with Agile/SCRUM Methodology
• Mac OS

Additional Information
Status: Part Time/ Non-Exempt (25 hours/week)

Salary: DOE

Employment with St. Joseph Center is contingent on completion of satisfactory background check.

Completed: FCCamp "Build a Wikipedia Viewer"

Done!!! Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration: the "finished" app is not very beautiful. BUT IT WORKS. And the assignment was to re-create the "functionality", not the pretty design.

After fours months of frustration -- partly due to technical problems, partly due to my outside life preventing me getting any coding hours -- it's a bit of a shock to sit down and just finish it! Clickity click! As if this FreeCodeCamp this was just a normal class/job and not a Nemesis!

I do have good hope that the "outside life" problem that was solved during the past four months is a true change, and now I will be able to make much more progress...

Next FCCamp task: another API exercise, this time for Twitch.tv (something I am not a user of.)

Inspiring

Not a very common sort of job ad. But inspiring that it exists.

---

FULL-STACK DEVELOPER

Sexual Health Innovations (SHI) is offering a unique opportunity to use your technical skills to change the future of sexual health and wellbeing.

SHI is a woman-founded and women-led nonprofit startup that builds technology to advance sexual health and wellbeing in the United States. We are hiring a highly-motivated full-stack web developer to work on Callisto, our largest program and main initiative. Callisto is a third-party sexual assault reporting system designed to provide a more empowering reporting experience for college sexual assault survivors and to facilitate the identification of repeat assailants.

You have:

• Familiarity with and experience working in an MVC framework (like Django or Rails)
• Deep empathy for our users, especially with regards to their privacy
• Sensitivity to confidential information, data integrity, and security
• A practical, product-focused approach to web development
• Ability to work independently and proactively
• Resourcefulness and the ability to prioritize
• Strong communication skills and an understanding of the challenges and joys of remote work
• A demonstrated drive to learn new things and continually develop your skills

We will give you:

• A hands-on education in web accessibility and application security
• Trust and support to make technical decisions and decide on direction
• Experience working on and maintaining open source projects
• A professional development budget and guidance to help your career grow as our organization grows
• Flexible work hours and location
• Full benefits package
• Paid vacation, holidays, and sick leave
• $80k-$90k/yr salary, commensurate with experience
• Purposeful and fulfilling work toward a noble mission

SHI is a small, close-knit team that values transparency and honest communication. You will be working closely with the Chief Technology Officer on every part of the Callisto stack. Right now, that includes Heroku, Postgres, Python, Django, Bootstrap, and Javascript. Our priorities as a technical organization are security, accessibility, user experience, and engineering best practices, such as automated testing and continuous integration. If you’re not sure if you should apply or not, you should!

Location: SHI has offices in San Francisco and New York City. In this position, you will have the opportunity to work remotely or from our offices. This is a full-time position. Travel expected once a year.

How to Apply:
Please submit the following documents to jobs@sexualhealthinnovations.org with the subject line “Full Stack Developer”:

• Resume
• Cover Letter
• Any relevant projects in your portfolio that you can share

Developers of color are especially encouraged to apply. Trans and non-binary developers are especially encouraged to apply. Queer developers are especially encouraged to apply. Developers with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply. Developers on their 2nd or 3rd career are especially encouraged to apply. Your perspective is invaluable to our work.

---

SHI is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy to comply with all federal, state and local equal opportunity and nondiscrimination laws. Our policy is to afford equal opportunity in all aspects of employment to all persons, including applicants, volunteers and independent contractors, without unlawfully discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, ethnicity, religion, religious creed (including religious dress and grooming), sex (including pregnancy, perceived pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, enrollment in a public assistance program, physical or mental disabilities, legally protected medical condition or information (including genetic information), family care or medical leave status, military caregiver status, veteran status, political affiliation, or any other protected class category covered by local, state or federal law. Sexual Health Innovations is committed to providing an inclusive environment for all employees, volunteers, board member, contractors, clients, and any other person that interacts with the organization.

Consistent with the law, SHI also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled applicants and employees; for pregnant employees who request an accommodation, with the advice of their health care providers, for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; for employees who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; and for applicants and employees based on their religious beliefs and practices.

Traits

From Zed Shaw's twitter feed today: what traits ought to be sought in a senior developer.

Stumbling blocks on the way to Intermediate

Or, "Why I Can't Build a Wikipedia Viewer".

FreeCodeCamp assignment: Build a CodePen.io app that is functionally similar to this:https://codepen.io/FreeCodeCamp/full/wGqEga/.

Reasons I was/am not ready to succeed at this:

1. No training in Ajax --> no ability to recognize, understand and resolve CORS error messages, or even google them successfully. 
2. MediaWiki API documentation extremely hard to understand, inconsistent, etc. 
3. But, even after I finally have the data: Weak coding fluency. Lack of practice. This is not really a roadblock-- I can write the logic, just very slowly.
4. Weak CSS skills. This is a bigger block than #3 -- I lack any practice at doing layouts in CSS, and also I have an irritable mental block along the lines of, I am not a graphic designer, I don't like CSS anyway, who cares about boring front end stuff, etc. This needs to be burned through and cured. Even if "front end" does not become my passion, I need to be competent. And get over myself.
5. Anger at FCCamp for making this one too hard.

The project landed on my desk March 16! It's been unhurdled for four months now!

Remedies:

1. After hours of research and study on Ajax (XHR, CORS, JSONP, etc), I think I have the basics of comprehension in place now. Check.
2. After hours of reading and struggle, I decided I had learned as much as I was going to learn and gave myself permission to just use someone else's (a FFCamp "staff" person's) code to get the data out of Wikipedia. Clearly FFCamp had intended this to be an exercise in writing code to display API data, not in mastering one particular labyrinthine API. That's where I am as of today: working on just getting the data out, without putting further effort into 100% understanding what all the little MediaWiki API commands actually mean.
3. Practice and study. FCCamp, I guess? Too bad no Jed Shaw text for front end.
4. Practice and study. Need to find more assignments and push more of this into my brain. Subscribed myself to CSS Tricks weekly newsletter to make sure it keeps flashing in front of my eyes. Here's a test page to remind myself what "competent" might look like. And a random list of lessons and exercises to try.
5. Wait for others to complain and FCCamp to resolve. Looking at the assigned model today: yep, it looks like they did make it easier: no more little thumbnail photos, and no more live responses as you type. Good. They are supposed to be training me, not hazing me.

Coding Journey overview: beginning third summer session...

Year Zero

May 2013: My kid wins a prize, and we visit Google campus. The vibe is attractive. Lots of happy grown-up gifted kids.

October 2013: Hour of Code. Cheerleading YouTube videos featuring president Obama etc. Somehow I take the message seriously.

Year One

July 2014: While kid is busy in summer program (twelve half days), I complete an introduction to programming in python on MIT Open Courseware. (The EdX version did not yet exist.)

Year Two

May 2015: Started FreeCodeCamp.

Fall 2015: "Blank Semester Here." Social and family structures, unhappy with my increasing mental independence, go into extreme fight back mode.

Spring 2016: Back in the saddle. Somewhat. But a new hurdle: transitioning from "Beginner" to "Low Intermediate", and FreeCodeCamp suddenly much less helpful. "Build a Wikipedia Viewer" project becomes a mental and emotional roadblock. (Also, to build "intermediate" projects I really to put in some solid hours, and my schedule has not allowed. However, the gradual cleaning up of the Fall 2015 mess may be leaving some new open spaces.)

Year Three

Summer 2016: The "12 half days" of kid-in-camp begins today. What will I be able to get done this year?

Getting a Coding Job For Dummies, by Nikhil Abraham

More culture/orientation material. Surprisingly helpful, despite the annoying title. Thank you, public library, for buying some new computer-related books.

Slowly, slowly, becoming less disoriented, clueless and "behind"...

• Part I: Getting a Job in Coding 
•  Chapter 1: Seeing the Big Picture 
•  Chapter 2: Exploring Coding Career Paths 
•  Chapter 3: Working as a Coder 
•  Chapter 4: Understanding Key Coding Concepts 
• Part II: Technologies Used When Coding 
•  Chapter 5: Creating a Website 
•  Chapter 6: Programming with Ruby and Python 
•  Chapter 7: Creating Mobile Apps 
•  Chapter 8: Analyzing Big Data 
• Part III: Getting Your Coding Education 
•  Chapter 9: Coding on Your Own 
•  Chapter 10: Going to Boot Camp
•  Chapter 11: Exploring Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees
•  Chapter 12: Training on the Job 
• Part IV: Launching Your Career Path 
• Chapter 13: Building Your Portfolio Site 
• Chapter 14: Networking for Opportunities 
• Chapter 15: Interviewing and Becoming a Star
• Part V: The Part of Tens 
• Chapter 16: Ten Interview Questions Decoded 
• Chapter 17: Ten Job Search Strategies
• Chapter 18: Ten Coding Myths 
• Chapter 19: Ten Coding Job Websites 

And then there's that scary violence thing

Success, fear, courage, support, questions. Things landing on my desk this week:

• "Thinking about Hillary: A Plea for Reason" by Michael Arnovitz, posted by a Facebook friend via DailyKos. Also on Medium. "...the one thing that seems to most negatively and consistently affect public perception of Hillary is any attempt by her to seek power. Once she actually has that power her polls go up again. But whenever she asks for it her numbers drop like a manhole cover."
• "She responds brilliantly, he regrets it." Another from a facebook friend, this one about a woman rebutting a sexual harasser online. Sadly, despite the gleeful title, it's clear he does not actually regret it. He blames her instead.
• "Feeling Sad About Tragedy". My young daughter's role model, youtube math goddess Vi Hart, posting about the massacre in Orlando, and on trying to navigate the dangers of being a visible, successful woman on the internet.
•  Kathy Sierra's 2014 Wired article (reposted to Systers listserv), "Trouble at the KoolAid Point" on harassment of successful women, and on widespread tech community support for that harassment. Hit close to home. Recent memories, though from a non-tech context. Really shook me.

Does success require navigating situations like these?

Read: Women in Tech by Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack

Well, that was an earful of rapid-fire advice. A fun read-- except for the bit about how women with kids cannot get tech jobs. That was not too encouraging.

Maybe I will read it again in a year or two.

(Amazing how quickly the book moved from Kickstarter to my local public library. Yay libraries. And Kickstarter.)

---

One small possible retort to the with-kids issue:

http://www.mothercoders.org/

HBO Silicon Valley

Just binge-watched a DVD of "Silicon Valley", season one. Does that count as educational? From my corner of the woods, maybe it does.

AJAX rant

OK, so it's been 2.5 months since I made any forward progress on the FreeCodeCamp site.

Partly that's been because of my difficult background/domestic situation, which took a swerve in March. There is hope for a new era in July.

But also it's because of an incomprehensible (to me, based on FCCamp training to date) error: "XMLHttpRequest cannot load ... No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource."

I've spent the last couple of months googling and reading in my scraps of space time. And feeling really (irrationally) angry about being thrown suddenly into the deep end. Being expected to suddenly be able to read the Wikipedia API developer docs as if I had the background to understand. Let alone understand an error like that.  AJAX, JSONP, CORS... The only beginner's intro I found anywhere was buried in a single chapter in an O'Reilly Head First book (was it jQuery? HTML5? I can't remember. But it wasn't AJAX), and that was only an intro.

I finally found FFCampers discussing the problem here and here via Google, but the conversation was above my head. Annoyingly the discussion voices range from the successful-but-confused to the smugly-superior. No one seems to place any value on actually understanding, or helping someone else actually understand.

2.5 months later, I think I may have finally gained enough background info be able to read and understand the learn.jQuery.com AJAX tutorial and give the "Wikipedia Reader" project another try. But I remain very cranky.

----------------

Found another grumpy FCCamper: "I have asked on Glitter, checked dozens of solutions including JSONP plugins, tried code that worked from other Freecodecampers on line, tried numerous Javascript, Ajax, JQuery, JSONP approaches, etc. I have spent more effort on overcoming CORS than on the rest of this curriculum combined." FCCamp replied with a cheery 'here, just use this code, it works,' but no explanation of the concepts involved.

Finished: Head First HTML5 Programming

 Didn't memorize every word. But, a useful overview. (When will my "just getting oriented" period be over? I don't know. But I do feel I am making progress.)

Women Who Code meeting

Hands on keyboard today for the first time in a month.

A month feeling deep, irrational anger at Free Code Camp for dumping the "Wikipedia Viewer" assignment on me without adequate training.

After the meeting: a nice WWC member "Sara A" sent me a friendly email recommending the Eloquent Javascript book. So sweet. Amazing how a little human gesture can encourage and motivate me. Even though her solution has not got much to do with my actual immediate technical problem, it helped a lot with what I guess is my technical loneliness problem. None of my current friends is interested in my little coding hobby.

Finished: Head First jQuery

"What is Code?"

I am sick this week, and not too functional, but I did read Paul Ford's 38,000 word article. Slowly becoming more culturally oriented.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/

Update 6/15/2016: Gradually listening to the CodeNewbie podcasts. Heard Paul Ford on episode 82. Enjoyed him. Thanks Saron.

Part time work?

• Power to Fly
• CodersClan

7/12/2016:

More/again, from "Getting a Coding Job" by Nikhail Abraham:

Part-Time and Contract Coding Jobs

• oDesk and Elance (now merged into Upwork)
• Freelancer
• CodersClan 

Finished: Head First Ajax

Linus Torvalds

Finished: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

Yeah, that's right. Published 2006. That was a bad year-- lots of cheerleading for how XHTML was so great that HTML5 would never even be invented. And CSS was so great because we now could do multi-column layouts in it, sort of, if we tried really really hard. Just close your eyes and believe. But the 2006 edition, that's what they have at the public library. Tech from ten years ago. It was actually sort of good to look back, remember the alienating awkwardness of that time, and also to affirm that I do know the contents of at least one textbook. Even if it's an old one.

Praise God for Bootstrap. And HTML5. And come to think of it I guess I missed the painful stage of Javascript altogether too. Something to be grateful for. I may have missed a lot of years. But a lot of that was totally worth missing.

Django Girls

I am alas not studying Django for now, but still like the good vibes coming from Django Girls.

Finished: Head First JavaScript Programming

Finished reading Head First JavaScript Programming. I am very happy about this textbook series! I had my doubts about all the cartoons etc, but it does a very satisfying job of caring about quality of information too. And about genuine understanding by the student. Aimed at smart, curious people who also like cartoons! Yet another reason to love O'Reilly.

(I have some gender irritation about the images in this one... very boy-team-centric, the girls used as endless "others"... Not a very hopeful training for workplace relations. But I'm sure they tried, and will keep trying. I appreciate the effort.)

AND I even felt I was really learning something useful, even though I was only an "airchair" student, not actually at the keyboard while reading. Since my actual keyboard time continues to be painfully limited, this feature is super awesome.

My library carries several other Head First books! Hoorah! Onward.

Next: Build a Wikipedia Viewer

Next Free Code Camp assignment is "Build a Wikipedia Viewer." The model has a form where a user can type a word and have the app return a nicely formatted list of Wikipedia articles.

Why can I not find "APIs for Beginners" anywhere? It's one of those secrets, like how to use GitHub fluently, that everyone already knows... Even my trusty W3Schools (which FFCamp scorns as too babyish a resource) just glosses it over with a little hand-waving (W3Schools JQuery AJAX Intro).

Trying... Maybe I should try going back to Codecademy while I wait for FFCamp to (eventually) backfill the missing lessons.

• First, Zapier: An Introduction to APIs. "If you are a non-technical person, you should feel right at home with the lesson structure." OK, yes, that was a nice soothing read.
• Codecademy: YouTube API course - at least this one seems to have an intro module called "How to Use APIs with Javascript" as Part 1, and "Searching for YouTube videos" only as Part 2. "How to Use APIs" serves as a nice interactive quiz on the Zapier article.



Zapier explains

• W3S Ajax Tutorial might help explain Codecademy lesson :P
• Also W3S XMLHttpRequest Object, JSON tutorial.

So much reading, so little coding! Sigh.

Codecademy How to Use APIs with Javascript: completed.
Out of time for today.

Show the Local Weather - done.

Well, I did it, but it was really hard, and I don't think I really got a grasp on it. I am missing some basic info about how how to use an API. All the info I can find is all about how to construct a request URL. But what do I do with the URL? Info seems minimal or sketchy, compared to all the other tutorial info about there. Frustrating.

But hey, learning to code is all about tolerating frustration, right...?

http://codepen.io/shcolligan/full/PNYZJa/

Javascript Calculator - done

Well, I finished the Javascript Calculator project. It was the first thing I've actually built (rather than just being an "airchair" programmer.) And it was fun.

But FCCamp has moved the curriculum sequence around again. Argh. My poor little checkbox brain. I guess I should just get used to it.

Still full of immense gratitide for Saron Yitbarek's Codenewbie podcast. Listening to them all, starting from the oldest ones, at night with the android tablet under my pillow.

misc background reading

Published 2004. But for me
still helpful, as I slowly 
catch up on the world..

During the Semester of Silence, and in other random bits of time, I am continuing to gather little bits of background cultural info.

I notice that all the code-newbie girls who get started "late" (after college) are the wives of professional programmers. In other words they have the cultural aspect already in place when they decided to "learn to code."

My severe cultural disorientation of a couple years ago is slowly fading. But it takes time.

I finally began building the first program of any size this week, the Javascript Calculator exercise. I was amazed to discover my brain going right to where it left off as a child in 1979, trying to design the program around BASIC GOTO statements. But I have now gathered enough background cultural knowledge about design decisions, and words like procedural and functional and object oriented, that I am no longer paralyzed by nameless anxiety caused by questions I cannot even articulate.

Someday if I am lucky I will run out of silly homework and need more. Someday.

Someday

• topcoder
• HackerRank
• codewars
• Interview Cake
• Exercism.io

Or at least join my kid on

• CodeCombat

(List at top generated Jan 27 2016 by the good people of DevChix.)

PS 2/8/2016 From a podcast I learn this has a name, apparently...? "Code kata"?

• Wikipedia
• Dave Thomas

Second session at WWC East Bay. Not blazing, but making some progress.

Now tackling: freeCodeCamp "Basic Front End Development Projects (100 hours)"

•    Build a Personal Portfolio Webpage - Complete
•    Build a Random Quote Machine - Complete
•    Build a JavaScript Calculator - Incomplete
•    Build a Pomodoro Clock - Incomplete

Inspiration: CodeNewbie podcast. I am absolutely starving for this sort of cultural orientation. And non-testosterone-soaked atmosphere too. Thank you Saron Itbarek, you are awesome.

Other bits to look at sometime:

• Thinkful Best Of: Podcasts for Aspiring Programmers

Women Who Code East Bay at NextSpace!

Suddenly I find myself in a fun study group! At a super easy location!

http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-East-Bay/events/227956444/

Floating through the happy chat air:

• http://exercism.io/
• http://www.wired.com/2014/09/exercism/

Back in the saddle at FCC. At least more than zero. (345 Brownie Points, up from 284 in August.) Welcome, January.

Blank semester here.

Well, my life blew up in September. Family etc drama. Other pulls on my soul. So, one semester gone, Sep-Dec 2015, no coding. A little bit of reading books etc, but no hands to the keyboard.