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.

Feeling Restless

The outside world providing other dramas, distracting from FCCamp.
Also the Ziplines were frustrating, a sudden toss into the deep end of the pool. Plus the frantic hype and chaos of front-end web development reminds me of what I did not inspire me about the Unity game dev course.
And the MIT 6.00 course just started on EdX.

Feeling restless.

Programming Python, 4th Edition

Powerful Object-Oriented Programming

By Mark Lutz

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Final Release Date: December 2010

Pages: 1632

3.9 Read 18 Reviews Write a Review

If you've mastered Python's fundamentals, you're ready to start using it to get real work done.Programming Python will show you how, with in-depth tutorials on the language's primary application domains: system administration, GUIs, and the Web. You'll also explore how Python is used in databases, networking, front-end...

FCCamp

What I have done on FCCamp: 284 Brownie Points (mostly Waypoints)

What I have left to do::

5 basejumps
6 bonfires
28 waypoints
10 ziplines

What does that actually mean?

Free Code Camp progress?

Apparently the little points I am earning at FFCamp are called "Brownie Points." Hm.

Just to fill in all those new blank checkboxes they added "behind" me, I went back to do anything unchecked in my list ("Map"), and found that many took only a few seconds to do. I am now up to 222 points! Woo! (We won't talk about whether that represents any actual progress or not for now :)

Other:

• Finished reading Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) All the key stuff was in the final chapter. Should I try setting up a Joomla project for practice? Should I focus on Wordpress instead? Or just FCCamp? 
• Still craving MIT. Tempted by Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python MITx 6.00.1x . Starts Aug 26, 2015. I think it's the same course I took last summer on MIT OpenCourseware, but updated and moved to EdX. So, if it's only a review, maybe not insane to do it simultaneous with FCCamp/javascript? Well...

Free Code Camp progress bars

Bad news: Jafar Husain's 42-step course in "Functional Programming" was so awfully demotivating I lost momentum after completing about 1/4 of it.

Good news: while I away being demotivated, FCCamp restructured their curriculum again. And Jafar Husain's course vanished.

Bad? news: After the curriculum restructure, I no longer know where I stand on my progress bar. A lot of new tasks have appeared "behind" me, the numbering system has changed again, and I don't know how many total tasks there are from which to calculate my Percent Complete.

May 8 - Aug 18, so three+ months from starting date. The number in the corner of my FCCamp "Portfolio" page now says "183". Out of how many total? Who knows. If I stick with 218, then 84%.

Gotta try and get back in the saddle...

List of over 80 Women in Tech Programs & Events in the Bay Area

Karen Church: A few weeks ago I began a quest to crowdsource a list of women in tech programs and events in the Bay Area and to make the resulting list public for all the benefit. And a couple of days ago I published the resulting list in a Medium article along with details of my quest, my motivations, the crowdsourcing effort I employed, the dataset collected and the analysis I conducted.
Since publishing the article, a couple of people have asked if there is a link to just the resulting list of 80+ events so I figured a separate post with just the final compiled list might be useful. Enjoy!
https://medium.com/@karenchurch/list-of-over-80-women-in-tech-programs-events-in-the-bay-area-5a8d210de878

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at almost three months. At scorepoint 179 (out of about 218, so 82%, if all the points are equal-- which I think they are not -- they get longer/harder toward the end). (For example: Item #184, "Waypoint: Practice Functional Programming", is a Jafar Husain's 42-step course they say will take several hours to complete. Earlier items took only 10-30 minutes each.)

Was scared by the Udacity course at first, but once I got started, I felt capable. Now that I've been in it a while, I am bored. Learning without "doing." I liked the Bonfires which felt more like "work" rather than "lessons." Udacity is way better than Codecademy though. Well built, alive-feeling.

Others:

• Have read 68% of Kindle Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) Also slightly boring, but a necessary orientation.

#ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign

Another bit of inspiration this week: the #ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign started by Isis Wenger @isisAnchalee. (A fun followup on June's #distractinglysexy )

http://ilooklikeanengineer.net/

Ada Lovelace, Tim Berners-Lee, Hackerschool Recurse...

Interesting looking organization: Recurse Center (formerly "Hacker School.")

(Sadly, I heard about Recurse in an email today announcing the shutdown of the Ada Initiative.)

Another source of inspiration: just read library book (published 2000, so, old, but Berners-Lee is a UU and a hero of mine) Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web, by Tim Berners-Lee.

Just watched his 2014 TED Talk, and burst into tears at the end when he gently, but clearly, asks the audience to fight for a Magna Carta for the Web. So UU. https://webwewant.org/

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at two months + 2 weeks. Finished "Bonfires" section! Now at scorepoint 171 (out of about 218, so 78%, if all the points are equal-- which I think they are not -- they get longer/harder toward the end). Haven't done any "pair programming" though. It's so hard for me to find time alone to concentrate on learning; let alone find that PLUS find time and space where I can chat out loud with someone over the internet about the assignment.

Next step: They want me to take a Udacity course in Object Oriented Javascript. Scary, intense Hack Reactor vibe. Ulp. Where is my warm, fluffy hand-holding?

Others:

• Have read 52% of Kindle Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) 

Geek Feminism

• Geek Feminism blog
• Geek Feminism wiki

And also: Yay Python! and Django Girls Tutorial.

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at two months + 1 week. Now at scorepoint 165 (out of about 218, so 75%, if all the points are equal). Getting a little tired of "Bonfires" but definitely learning from the work.

Others:

• Finished audiobook The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson.
• Have read 42% of Kindle Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) 

Progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, almost two months gone. Now at scorepoint 136 (out of about 218, so 62%, if all the points are equal).

Others:

• Listening to The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson, at bedtime. Now in the 1980's, GNU, Linux.
• Bought that Kindle copy of Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) Also spent time trying to get public library access to Safari Online books set up. (If I had it working, I wouldn't have needed to pay for the Joomla book.)
• Gave up on the MITx CS6.00 Python class that started June 10. :(
• Irrationally, signed up for MITx Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer? I don't have time for it (nor for being an entrepreneur), but it doesn't have any deadlines either.

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):

• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, Third Edition: Moved to non-progressing bars.
• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 

Progress Bars

Free Code Camp: Finished sections 1-6. Passing a milestone: Moving from "Waypoints" intro section to "Bonfires" practice section. Section 6 included brief lessons on Chrome DevTools, Regex searches. Now, section 7, Javascript "Basic Algorithm Scripting", and pair programming using Screen Hero.
Other markers: Now at seven weeks post May 8 start date. Now at scorepoint 117 (out of about 218. I counted by hand. So 54%, if all the points were equal).

Others:

• Hello Web App by Tracy Osborn. Finished. Not super useful. 
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, Third Edition: Moved to non-progressing bars.
• Listening to The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson, at bedtime. Now in the 1970's, founding of Microsoft, Apple.
• Want to buy a Kindle copy of Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.)
• Really wish I were in the MITx CS6.00 Python class that started June 10. :(

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):

• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 

Free Code Camp week five

Finished the rather silly Stanford Online "CS101" class.
Freecodecamp then sent me back to Codecademy, bleah.
But I had already finished that course! Free jump ahead!
And escape from Codecademy again! Next task:
"Discover Chrome DevTools" at CodeSchool.com
Oo, I don't know any of that stuff. Finally something new and exciting!

I found a number at FCCamp that seems to be a score: "113". It ups my score when I complete a "Waypoint" or "Challenge" (for example, one for each week of the CS101 course.) It doesn't say how many there are total.

This is their plan. I'm on item #6 "Basic JavaScript" -- the "Discover Chrome DevTools" is step 9 of 10 in that section.

800 Hours of Practice:

1. Get Set for Free Code Camp - done
2. Basic HTML5 and CSS - done
3. Responsive Design with Bootstrap - done
4. jQuery - done
5. Computer Science - done
6. Basic JavaScript
7. Basic Algorithm Scripting
8. Object Oriented JavaScript
9. Intermediate Algorithm Scripting
10. Functional Programming
11. Advanced Algorithm Scripting
12. Front End Development Projects
13. Full Stack JavaScript
14. Full Stack JavaScript Projects

800 Hours of  Real World Work Experience:

1. 100-hour Nonprofit Project
2. 200-hour Nonprofit Project #1
3. 200-hour Nonprofit Project #2
4. 300-hour Nonprofit Project

Free Code Camp update

• Completed jQuery at Codecademy
• Working through six-week "CS101" course at "Stanford Online Lagunita." ("Lagunita is Stanford's instance of the open-source software release of the Open edX platform, which was developed by the joint Harvard/MIT non-profit organization, and which Stanford engineers have been collaborating on since April 2013. Lagunita hosts many of the free, online courses that are taught by Stanford faculty and made available to lifelong learners around the world for self-enrichment. Lagunita also hosts a variety of professional education opportunities in conjunction with many of Stanford University's schools and departments."). Now working on Week 4 of 6. (June 11: finished week 6.)

My quest for true understanding is doomed to frustration

Progress Bars

Free Code Camp: Reached a milestone-- Finished "Waypoints", now entering the "Bonfires" section of their program. Finished brief lessons on Chrome DevTools, Regex searches.  Other markers: start date May 8 + seven weeks, score points 117 (out of ?).

Others:

• Hello Web App by Tracy Osborn. Finished reading.
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, Third Edition:  Moved to non-progressing bars.
• Listening to The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson, at bedtime. Now on chapters about early 1970s, founding stories of Microsoft and Apple.
• Wanting to get Kindle book  Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.)
• Really wishing I were in the MITx CS6.00 Python class that started on June 10. :(

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):

• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 

Bootstrap hope and joy

OK, this is silly, but I just discovered Bootstrap and it's making me cry with relief. Ever since CSS was announced as our supposed liberation from HTML Table layouts (1996?!), I've been waiting for CSS become usable (or at least better than Tables)... I think this may finally be it! The era (decade?!) where web page creation and I parted ways may finally be over...

Also: Free Code Camp chat member "david" posted the following graphic today. A nice little jiāyoú 加油  :)

And today, I finished Free Code Camp thru Waypoint #13 ( aka Codecademy "Make a Website (Airbnb home page), 3 hours"). Next FCC task: Codecademy jQuery, 3 hrs.

Finished Codecademy Ruby course

When did I start? Looking back over this blog... Sometime between Feb 9 and Feb 27. That means it took me three months of stolen moments to complete the "nine-hour" course. :(

Progress bars:

Newly Started:

• Hello Web App by Tracy Osborn. Got a Kindle edition.
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, Third Edition: Paper edition finally came out. Might do this as reading, and do my typing via FreeCodeCamp...
• FreeCodeCamp.com - trying this. Feels attractive. Welcoming to us over-30 nonprofity types. Staffer (founder?) guy "QuincyLarson" was nice to me in site chat. I've finished all their introductory "about us" lessons ("Waypoints" 1-8) and am now obediently doing the first real assignment, Waypoint #9 (which turns out to be yet another Codecademy course-- sigh.)
• Also got a copy of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. My liberal arts brain thinks this should count for something.

Recently Finished:

• Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein. 
• Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):

• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed tasks through chapter 2 of 12. 

Totally shelved-- the intro chapters gave me enough of a sense, for now:

• Nand to Tetris Coursera course (completed most of Week One) and Elements of Computing Systems textbook by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (read through chapter four).
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.: 69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

freecodecamp.com

It takes about 1,600 hours of coding to develop the skills you'll need to get an entry level software engineering job.
Most coding bootcamps try to jam all this into 3 or 4 months of intensive study. Free Code Camp is fully online, and there will always be other people at your skill level that you can pair program with, so you can learn at your own pace. Here are some example coding schedules: 

Time budgeted --- Hours per week --- Weeks to complete
Weekends  --- 10 hours/week  --- 160 weeks (36 months)
Nights and Weekends  --- 20 hours/week  --- 80 weeks (18 months)
Full time  --- 40 hours/week  --- 40 weeks (9 months)
Traditional Bootcamp Pacing  --- 80 hours/week  --- 20 weeks (5 months)

It's hard to not feel discouraged by this info. Three or four years of my current life seems very depressing. And I can't pretend I am even really doing 10 hours/week successfully.

Also I must be amused by the use of the word "Traditional" in "Traditional Bootcamp."

Thanks DevChix for the link to freecodecamp.com though. It looks interesting.

----
PS Reading the chat at freecodecamp led me to this similar site: "The Odin Project". Ruby on Rails. Free. But, clear macho (nerd-macho) theme. And, none of the fun little checkboxes that FreeCodeCamp has :)

Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein

Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein.

I finished it!

I'm thinking I like Eric Weinstein, but not really Ruby. Too chaotic.

If I return to Python, will it be as orderly as I remember it as?

Ah well. Python is not next on the list. Linux is. After finishing the silly Codecademy Ruby course. Got up to 87% today.

Three weeks gone.

Well, if Wednesday checkins are the measure, it looks like the sick kid and events killed three weeks. Or four, if you count this Weds too, since almost nothing got done today either.

I did do some of the Nand to Tetris course-- the intro/overview, and the first week. Almost got the first week homework done. Read the textbook up through the third week/chapter. It was helpful/orienting. (But decided I do not have enough hours/week to avail do that course right now, so I do not plan to continue and complete.)

Also a few inches gained on the two Ruby items.

Progress bars:

• Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein. p 208/272. 
• Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 79% complete 

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing) bars:

• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. No progress. (Was doing Nand to Tetris instead.) 
• Nand to Tetris Coursera course (completed most of Week One) and Elements of Computing Systems textbook by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (read through chapter four).
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12. 
• Note new book, similar, but in Python and by a woman: Hello Web App by Tracy Osborn.
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.: 69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

From NAND to Tetris

Today's work session cancelled by sick kid.

My scattering (multiplying? replacing?) of task bars continues: a friend sent a recommendation for the new NAND to Tetris Coursera course (starts April 11, 2015), and I feel sort of hungry-angry about it. I want this literacy. They claim it's a basic course, no technical background required. Ha. I read the first few pages of the textbook, and it was scary. And I don't think the I have the hours per week that I would need to wrestle with it. (Especially if I keep using the few hours I have to explore new courses rather than finish my "old" ones.)

• Book: The Elements of Computing Systems, MIT Press, by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken
• From NAND to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer From First Principles website

Toys to supplement Week One:

• Logic Gate Simulator -  by Steve Kollmansberger
• Logic Gate Simulator - Academo.org

Linux

Well, as I continue my nonlinear explorations, I am looking at adding yet another unfinished Progress Bar to my record: LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux.

I supposed I should also add the kid book I am reading in odd moments: Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein. It's funner than Codecademy.

Progress bars:

• LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. Completed Chapter 00, Welcome and Introduction, and part of Chapter 01. Viewed perky intro videos. Enjoyed. (Course consists of 18 chapters plus final exam.)
• Possible inspiration: The Code: Story of Linux movie. I like books/movies that lionize hacker culture :) But I don't have much movie-watching time avail.
• Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein. p 169/272.
• Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 70% complete 

Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing) bars:

• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

Progress bars

Great gods, it's been a month since the last post. I thought maybe ten days.

Progress bars:

• Using Drupal, 2nd Edition. Choosing and Configuring Modules to Build Dynamic Websites. By Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Bruno De Bondt. Finished reading, or skimming at least. Need to learn more about web servers, PHP, etc. Back to Michael Hartl.
• Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 60% complete 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

nonlinear progress?

Joined the devChix mailing list. Along with Wired magazine and O'Reilly Media's Programming Newsletter, helps give me a sense of culture and context.

Other "progress bars":

• Using Drupal, 2nd Edition. Choosing and Configuring Modules to Build Dynamic Websites. By Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Bruno De Bondt. p.86 of 456. (19%)
• Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 38% complete 
• Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
• Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

My latest distraction, sprung from the events of winter break: 

Also, just for fun, with my kid:

Back from winter break

Five weeks of silence on this blog. Five weeks of almost no computer lessons. Completely distracted by a personnel crisis in an organization I am in. Crisis phase is now over but restructuring work continues.

Purchased and began reading Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger, Matthew McCullough. Everyone keeps saying Git is an easy no-brainer but I keep feeling confused and wary. This book is helping a lot. "Don't worry your pretty little head about the details" only goes so far.

I may begin the Ruby sequence on Codecademy because a) I am still distracted enough to need something a little brainless to do and b) I am tired of being given code examples that I am supposed to "understand the gist of" when I don't even know the elementary syntax. Plus, Codecademy is only play so it doesn't require Git.

But, a friend is working on learning Drupal/Open Atrium, causing my attention to wander toward learning more about Drupal... Wander, wander...

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. (POODR)

Been reading Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Now on page 70 (of 241) now. So helpful.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl: completed 3.1, 3.2., 3.3, 3.4.3

I really gotta do a basic course in Ruby syntax if I'm going to keep learning good stuff from Ruby teachers. :P

• http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/ruby

Meanwhile endless advice flows into my mailbox:

• A concrete approach to learning how to program: A solid foundation on which more meaningful learning can happen, by Semmy Purewal, OReilly Radar

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

Finished chapter 2 of Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl.

It's so hard to find time to concentrate uninterrupted, especially time at my computer, with working internet. For example, I can't do it while gulping my dinner in a taqueria. Or when there are chatty people around to whom I must not be too cold or rude.

I can read paper books, even when not at a quiet desk. I have scraps of time while waiting at the kid's orthodontist, eating breakfast, etc. But paper books are expensive.

Just finished this one: Introducing GitHub: A Non-Technical Guide. By Peter Bell, Brent Beer. O'Reilly Media.  Final Release Date: November 2014. It's humiliating to have to start with the "non-technical" one. And to still feel ignorant at the end. But, a little bit less so.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

Finished chapter 1 (of 12). Hard but fun.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

New baby GitHub account

Getting board/frustrated with the Unity book. (69% complete). Have I gotten what I needed to get from it (ie, some experience messing around in an a object-oriented environment), or should I persevere and finish, since I started? In a fit of restlessness, began the Railstutorial.org book before finishing the Unity one.

(Is it true I don't yet have a GitHub account? Didn't I create one at that Open Source event? Apparently not...) (Oo, Hartl tutorial has me setting up a Cloud9 IDE account too... pretty! At least I know what an IDE is now. Progess since this summer :P   )

Profoundly distracted by the Ferguson protests.

Code School "Try Git"

Completed today. Not super enlightening. Cat is cute tho.

Hour of Code - one year later

Hour of Code approacheth. One year later.

What has changed in one year?

I have completed introductory classes in: HTML/CSS/Javascript; Python (several); Unity Game Engine (63% as of today). I am itching to be done with the Unity course so I can tackle the Michael Hartl Ruby on Rails one.

Object Oriented Programming concepts are no longer totally alien.

I have moved from feeling proud of myself for sticking a toe in the water, to feeling very impatient and frustrated that I still don't really know how to just jump in and swim.

I have joined a lot of new email lists and have a different set of voices flowing across my screen: O'Reilly, Gamasutra, Women Who Code. I got my Hour of Code reminders from GeekMom this year. I learned about new holidays, like Ada Lovelace Day.

I thought about organizing an Hour of Code event at the kid's computer club place this year-- but did not.

Unity with Ryan Henson Creighton: 57%

OK, the code in this chapter did not work.

And I fixed it.

Even though I do not know much about the Unity engine, or UnityScript, I apparently do know how to debug, slowly, methodically: is this part working? Yes? How about this part? No? Debug.Log(), Debug.Log()... And I do know how to muck slowly through incomprehensible script reference manuals describing objects and classes and variables I know nothing about, until I find what I need.

I still don't know why his code didn't work. He said to "tag" something using Unity, and I did, and the Unity interface says it is successfully "tagged", but the script does not see the "tag". Some kind of Unity bug I guess.

I'm sure there are multiple fixes/workarounds. But I found one of them :)

Re-inspired

Got the idea of looking for a UCBerkeley equivalent of MIT Open Courseware. Found EdX Berkeley. Then... found a course with a list of prerequisites that I actually understood! Maybe there's a "Level Two" for me in the world! Plus it even seems to cover something like the "web stack" topic I was planning to try next.

EdX UC-BerkeleyX Engineering Software as a Service CS169.1x
CS169.1x teaches the fundamentals for engineering long-lasting software using highly-productive Agile techniques to develop Software as a Service (SaaS) using Ruby on Rails. Students will understand the new challenges and opportunities of SaaS versus shrink-wrapped software. They will understand and apply fundamental programming techniques to the design, development, testing, and public cloud deployment of a simple SaaS application. Students will use best-of-breed tools that support modern development techniques including behavior-driven design, user stories, test-driven development, velocity, and pair programming. Students will learn how modern programming language features like metaprogramming and reflection can improve productivity and code maintainability. Prerequisites: Programming proficiency in an object-oriented programming language such as Java, C#, C++, Python, or Ruby is required. We will teach the basics of Ruby at a very accelerated pace that assumes thorough familiarity with OOP inheritance, static/class vs. instance methods and attributes, recursion, hash tables/hash maps, list comprehensions, higher-order functions, lambda expressions. This course is NOT a good first course in programming. Basic Unix command-line skills are helpful. Familiarity with Git, GitHub and Heroku will also be helpful. 6-12 hours/week, Oct 21-Dec 9, 2014. (CS169.2x: Engineering Software as a Service, Part 2, begins Jan 6, 2015.) 

"Profiiciency" is too strong a word, but at least I understand most of what the "prerequisite" words refer to. (I do NOT (yet!) understand what most of the course description words refer to. :P)

Alas the timing is wrong: the course started a few weeks ago (Oct 21), and I haven't finished my Unity course yet. (Currently at 42%)

While looking at the course webpage, I saw a student review that recommended "Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial" before starting the course. I looked it up, found out it is a book available online, read the first few sections, and loved it. So I can do a virtual (by which I mean offline, LOL) version of the course using this book, and now I have something to read over lunch again.

I Googled "Python Django vs Ruby Rails" and decided I am probably more of a Python type. But, no harm in learning a bit of Ruby syntax at this stage.

Frustrated by slowness

Unity book: now 40% done. 

Goaded by WWWCode Newsletter link to Bloc bootcamp website, feeling frustrated by my slow pace of learning. So hard to steal quiet, concentrated time at the computer...

From the WWWCode Newsletter/ Bloc website:

• Bloc Course Directors Share Their Favorite 10 Pre-Bootcamp Tutorials. The page is still frustratingly hard to read, full of references to things I have not only not mastered, but am not even familiar with. :P
• Bloc's Programming Bootcamp Comparison - "Navigating the Coding Ecosystem: Compare Price, Length, and Workload of Learn-to-Code Courses." Includes a description of coding student types, by category:

  • THE HOBBYIST
    “I’m new to coding. I want to learn how to build my own app, on my own time.”
    
    • holding an irregular schedule
    • unsure if coding is the right fit for you
    • learning to code just as a hobby
    TRY A SELF PACED, OR LOW INTENSITY COURSE, like Codecademy. Maybe 5-10 hours/week, or less.
  
  
  • THE PROFESSIONAL
    “I work in a tech industry. I want to learn how to code like a professional.”
    
    • have a full time job
    • a busy life, with not too much free time (kids, family)
    • or a familiarity with coding, but no experience
    TRY A PART TIME, MID INTENSITY COURSE, like Udacity. 20 hours/week, or less.
  
  
  • THE JOB SEEKER
    “I’m making a complete career change. I want to be a professional developer.”
    
    • looking to make a complete career change
    • ready to make learning to code your full-time job
    • frustrated that past efforts learning to code failed
    TRY A FULL TIME, INTENSIVE COURSE. A bootcamp, like Bloc. 40-90 hours/week, over 12 weeks or so.
    
  
  
  • [We at Bloc]... calculated how much time it would take to reach a minimum of 500 hours of experience — a decent chunk of the 10,000 hours required to master a skill...

I guess I should be glad to see "my type" on the list at all. But I feel frustrated that it's under "hobbyist"... even though that is entirely accurate.

Mozilla Webmaker

Mozilla Webmaker Web Literacy Map
https://webmaker.org/en-US/literacy

Got an email today from "MozFest." Am chagrined to realize I don't understand the vocabulary well enough to read it and understand what they are talking about. But after poking around on the links for a while, I think I may add Mozilla Webmaker to my list of possible next steps on my curriculum of exploration. (Next steps meaning after I finish my current "unit" on game design, embodied by the Unity textbook.) They have a Web Literacy Map that includes topics like "Understanding the Internet Stack" -- seems like some of the same areas of knowledge that "coder boot camps" (Hackbright, etc) cover, and which I am still missing.

Unity with Ryan: 26%

Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.

One hour work session today. Did pages "23%" through "26%" (Does it make sense to note page numbers in Kindle? p 137 of 533, ch 4 of  14...). Built a bouncy ball thing. Giggled.

(I'll admit it: I bought this book because of the shoot-y noise on the cover.)

Saturday, Nov 8: 
Worked to 31%. Still fun. And still good for the other reason I chose Unity for my current "class" -- provides practice on object-oriented proramming and Javascript, in context of a larger project or system.