Every day feels like Day 1, or "Do I make it through?"
So something I've noticed about coding so far, is that since I'm so brand new to all of it, I feel like I'm starting over everyday. When I look at something or try to understand what it's doing, it's like I'm seeing it for the first time. I think another term would be like I'm spinning my wheels.
I'm hoping that eventually fades, but I'm not sure. Maybe that confusion is gonna help keep me motivated; I always taught my students that confusion is the sweat of learning: IF you're not confused and need to overcome that confusion, then you're not really working hard. The same is true for working out. If you went to the gym and didn't sweat during your workout, what did you do? Not much. So if your confused and need to work, that's your brain actually physically making connections and working to understand. So right now, a few hours after I got off Teams with Brandon, I'm still confused from some of the stuff we did, and it was a fairly simple concept.
We talked about API a lot, and I found understanding on that concept by thinking of them like a fancy method you can call on, but it exists on a separate server. That helps because now your code isn't hardwired all together and you can instead, if a problem occurs, you've got your code kinda chunked out and can find the problem in those chunks, or if something needs to be changed you change the chunk and thus the code changes, too. Brandon used the analogy of spark plugs in an engine. You can replace the spark plugs more easily than replacing the whole engine. I know I don't fully understand it all, but I'm getting there. So we messed around with some APIs he found and tried a Get, Post, Put, and Delete method with them. I followed.
We talked about API a lot, and I found understanding on that concept by thinking of them like a fancy method you can call on, but it exists on a separate server. That helps because now your code isn't hardwired all together and you can instead, if a problem occurs, you've got your code kinda chunked out and can find the problem in those chunks, or if something needs to be changed you change the chunk and thus the code changes, too. Brandon used the analogy of spark plugs in an engine. You can replace the spark plugs more easily than replacing the whole engine. I know I don't fully understand it all, but I'm getting there. So we messed around with some APIs he found and tried a Get, Post, Put, and Delete method with them. I followed.
Then the Space x rocket went up and we took a break.
Crazy to think about those two men in that tiny capsule strapped to an explosive shooting at 26,000 km/hour into space. Watching that all happen, and struggling to write HTML for a localhost only website about black bears on code academy was humbling and amazing to watch. Thinking about what humans are capable of when we work together is always awesome, and living in Orlando I've been privileged enough to see a few launches from the safety of my front yard.
We came back and talked more about what I want to be able to do, got my Git hub going with a little more code (though we haven't really done anything so far) and I feel comfortable moving forward to make a rinky dink website that can DO something.
I'm looking ahead and I want to dedicate several hours a day to this. If I'm gonna be trying to stay safe it means I'll be avoiding the outside world for a long while, so this is something I can do to help myself stay mentally active and really, better my future prospects for careers. I could be a valuable employee anywhere if I have the right skill set. So this summer, I'm trying to make myself better.
IT's really unfortunate that I know myself well enough that right now I'm at the "THIS IS EXCITING" stage, and I'm likely to fall off this road HARD once I get distracted, as I am wont to do. During the typing of this blog post I've been to about 2 dozen different tabs and read three Medium.com articles and scrolled Facebook through about 18 refreshes and resized my banner for the blog and read some email and emailed back a coworker and made chocolate milk and then I can back to the computer and thought, "Where was I?" And then I went and danced with my wife instead of finishing the post.
I'm looking ahead and I want to dedicate several hours a day to this. If I'm gonna be trying to stay safe it means I'll be avoiding the outside world for a long while, so this is something I can do to help myself stay mentally active and really, better my future prospects for careers. I could be a valuable employee anywhere if I have the right skill set. So this summer, I'm trying to make myself better.
IT's really unfortunate that I know myself well enough that right now I'm at the "THIS IS EXCITING" stage, and I'm likely to fall off this road HARD once I get distracted, as I am wont to do. During the typing of this blog post I've been to about 2 dozen different tabs and read three Medium.com articles and scrolled Facebook through about 18 refreshes and resized my banner for the blog and read some email and emailed back a coworker and made chocolate milk and then I can back to the computer and thought, "Where was I?" And then I went and danced with my wife instead of finishing the post.
Point is, I need to find a way to stick with this, unlike many other things I've done in life. I think I'm capable of coding; I have the ability to understand it and use it effectively. The question is, can I stick with it long enough to get to that point, or will I fall off and spend all summer beating Witcher 3 instead of working on this.
I've always had a hard time staying motivated, but I've seen success with it in other areas. Maybe I come out of this better. Maybe I come out of this with a cool website and a lot of hours on the PS4.
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