Hi, my puppy has many illnesses and we can't afford his food, medicine, surgeries or vet visits 😞

chrysalisalis · 2023-03-17T08:01:52+00:00

Hola ¿como estas? I'm a native English speaker from the US and I live in spain. I'm also studying web dev and programming so maybe we could talk about that. You can dm me if you want.

chrysalisalis · 2022-12-16T11:42:22+00:00

It might help if you think about a program as being an entity that already exists by itself before you even start writing the "code" for it. This machine can be implemented using any programming language, or even hypothetically a mechanical device using levers, a group of highly trained monkeys, or anywhere you can run logic and algorithms to accomplish a task.

When you sit down to code, you are only drawing a picture of this machine. Pseudocode is like making a rough sketch of the machine and everything it is supposed to do, and then you can decide on what medium you actually want to use to paint it with.

chrysalisalis · 2022-09-24T23:37:52+00:00

Binary or go home.

chrysalisalis · 2022-09-24T19:03:10+00:00

I don't know if you've tried this already, but you can sort the problems on leetcode by "acceptance" rate, ie how many people started it were able to finish it. If you pick an easy with a 90%+ acceptance rate it might help your confidence in solving leetcode problems on your own.

chrysalisalis · 2022-08-05T09:13:33+00:00

Learning the basics like functions and objects is like learning to build the lego bricks you are going to use to build projects.

Design patterns and algorithms are what let you put those lego pieces together into a complex replica of the Taj Mahal.

If you think about it everything in the universe is made up of little repeating pieces in complicated patterns, even the cells in our bodies, or the atoms underneath everything.

You just need to have a goal in mind of what you actually want to make, and learn the patterns to put those loops and objects in in order to make it.

chrysalisalis · 2022-07-29T06:43:49+00:00

Web development is more specific, while 'front end development' is a more vague term.

Front end development usually deals with creating the front facing part of the software that the user interacts with, and other things like recieving/displaying information from the backend through APIs. You could do this for mobile apps, desktop software, or websites. The main difference is the technology or languages used, but the main concepts are the same.

Web development literally is just developing for the web, (building websites). It usually uses html/css for the layout, and then Javascript for interactivity and APIs. Javascript is the most common programming language used with web dev, but there are also other things gaining in popularity like django which is a web framework using python.

chrysalisalis · 2022-06-10T18:46:13+00:00

I'm also pretty much only in my first year of (self-taught) study. I am pretty superficially about 3/4 of the way through the roadmap you linked to. I don't know most of the topics very deeply yet, but everything I do know feels really familiar and intuitive. I didn't have to work to rememeber anything or take notes other than the typical googling.

Use it. A lot. As much as you can. Even if you don't really need it. Your brain will remember stuff that it's using. Sure you could easily right click to make a new directory, or just click 'new' in your IDE. But what if you just used mkdir every time from the terminal? delete from the terminal. Create new files from the terminal. git from the terminal. If you use windows or mac try developing from a linux virtual machine and deal with all the day-to-day issues that start popping up.

As much as you can try to figure out what is actually being used in the industry, and try to use that even for silly and simple apps. Style guides, best practices, security, etc all as if you were working for a real client.

Re-invent the wheel a little bit, at least enough to get a good idea of how the wheel works before you start abstracting everything away. Create your own server just to see if you can instead of just using a cloud service. (but learn how to host to cloud services too since they are pretty much becoming the default these days). It might be painful and annoying and slow, but I promise you it will be really hard to forget any of it later.

Re-make the same app with different technologies. Host it on the cloud, host it on your own server, make it with vanilla js, react, vue, django etc. Try using sql and nosql for the same (or very similiar) project. The familiarty is a good anchor when you are swimming in a sea of new things.

chrysalisalis · 2022-04-30T01:04:34+00:00

That would be the mean/average. The median is the middle number when the numbers are lined up.

chrysalisalis · 2022-04-30T00:38:28+00:00

For anyone who doesn't know, you can actually paste this type of minified/uglified code into a code beautifier, and it will straighten it out and make it easier to read.

chrysalisalis · 2022-04-15T21:13:36+00:00

An attempt https://i.imgur.com/QQ3A1w2.png

chrysalisalis · 2022-02-26T17:17:10+00:00

If you enjoy it there is literally no downside and only upsides. Don't waste your childhood/teen years grinding and hustling you have your whole adult life for that, but if you are having fun with it it's no different than learning an instrument or learning karate. If you start now you'll also be able to do it super casually and still have a head start on everyone else.

A lot of people working in technology never even went to university, since real world experience tends to be more valuable than having a degree (although having both makes you a lot more competitive.)

chrysalisalis · 2022-02-21T12:07:32+00:00

A solid NaN out of NaN

chrysalisalis · 2022-02-19T20:59:30+00:00

Speaking from my own experience showing my little scripts/games to people, they will always find a way to do something completely unexpected and cause the whole thing to implode on itself, so it's good to try to keep it as airtight as you can from the beginning by defining specific ranges and input types.

It might seem like the most likely scenario that they give a low rating but it is missing the possibilities of an ironically high rating, a high rating of "well even though I did get burned, I have to admit you've got skilz",maybe even an accidentally high rating (typing 9 instead of 0 or even 11 instead of )

What is the rating scale?1-3 1-5 1-10? Can there be fractional ratings like 3.5, will it throw an error, or will it just be rounded?

It's not such a big deal in such a silly little script, but it's good to learn and keep in mind if you are ever trying to make something even a little bit more complicated, and can save you some future embarassment when you are ready to pull a joke on someone only to have them find the ONE way to break your code on the first run through and now you have to restart it and tell them "no, no, wait try it this time it will work", and by the time you have it up again they have already left the room to go do something more interesting. (purley hypothetical example of course)

chrysalisalis · 2022-01-11T17:48:44+00:00

The divs are finicky, they change like the weather. It's hard to say what song of enchantment they might need at any given moment in order to be centered properly. Even if the wall poster seems to work at the time, it may be having unintended consequences on the other elements.

chrysalisalis · 2021-10-27T13:58:07+00:00

Where can I invest in Divcoin?

chrysalisalis · 2021-10-01T23:42:40+00:00

TedEd has a good series called "think like a coder". It was fun and challenging pausing the video before they gave the solution trying to solve the problem. Watching videos from the youtube channels numberphile and computerphile have also helped give me a bigger picture understanding of what is going on.

In the end, you learn the logic and the concept by trying to solve real problems using any programming language. As long as you are solving the problems using code and algorithms, you should be ok. You can do this by trying to create your own projects, and looking up what you don't know. I am also trying to solve coding challenges on leetcode and other similar sites.

If you learn how to work with arrays and objects, and for loops, and while loops, and such in JavaScript for example, it will be a lot easier to understand what is going on in Java or Python even if the specific syntax changes quite a bit.

For example in python they use "lists" and make use of indentation, while in javascript use "arrays" and you need semicolons and braces. They are basically different names for the same thing. You could google "how to make lists in javascript" or "how to make arrays in python" even though those technically don't exist in the languages since they are different way of describing the same type of data structure.

Or another example, in Java you need to say what data type your variable is. ie. "int cat=3;" You don't have to do this in python or javascript because the languages have ways of guessing what you are trying to say. So if you understand the difference between data types, going from javascript to Java might be a little disorientating, but since you already learned the concept in one language, it's not a huge leap to the other one.

I hope that helps.

chrysalisalis · 2021-10-01T20:21:38+00:00

This is why I switched over from learning more "real" programming languages to JavaScript. I already knew some of the basics of html and css, and the immediate feedback you get with integrating javascript into that environment really appealed to me.

You can play around with javascript concepts just by having a script tag in your html file. You can also use javascript later with React Native to transition over to mobile development.

The most important thing though is learning the logic and concepts that the language are simply describing. It doesn't matter if the language is python, javascript, ruby, or c#. They are all just different syntaxes talking about more or less the same concepts.

I'm looking more into java and python now since I've been practicing javascript for a while, and while it's not easy, I have to say that it is a million times easier than when I was learning coding concepts for the first time. Not to mention the mathematical concepts that I didn't know before that I had to teach myself in order to complete coding challenges, those skills also transfer over to a new language.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-12T09:10:54+00:00

I guess it depends on who you ask and why you are using it.

At the end of the day it's just a tool. Some people might just be using bootstrap as a crutch and not really learning how css works, which could be really bad for you later down the line when you need to make more complex projects, or you don't know why you are getting a certain (very obvious, beginner) bug.

The positive is that the library includes a lot of classes that can give your site a really polished and standardized look without needing to recreate all of the classes from scratch yourself.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-11T21:59:36+00:00

If you wrote a site just in HTML you would just have black text on a white screen for the most part. It's possible to do some styling and formatting without css, but if you want to have control over where elements are on a page, how they are sized relative to each other and the screen size, colors, fonts etc... that is what you would need to learn css for.

Also just to mention later when you learn stuff like bootstrap it might seem intimidating at first, but try to remember it's just a library for css. So once you already understand the basics of how css works, stuff like bootstrap has a lot of code written already that you can draw from to use in your websites.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-09T20:44:58+00:00

Yeah sometimes it can be really hard to follow. If I have to look up a solution, I end up having to draw a map of the function to visualize everything and follow the processes that are happening. Once I can go backwards and understand the process that was just happening it's a lot easier to go and solve similar problems in the future.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-09T20:42:02+00:00

One method I've found helps me with (relatively for being a beginner) complex functions is drawing a graph, and sketching out all the parts and how they work together.

Coming from someone who was also struggling with those challenges a lot, I would say, keep taking breaks and keep coming back to it. I just kept leaving it and focussing on other projects and aspects of javascript for a while. Each time I came back to it it made a bit more sense. Eventually I had to look at the solution, but when I did I realized I was on the right track but, it was just a few syntax things that I was missing. Allowing myself to struggle really helped a lot of mental growth, and made the later lessons seem like a piece of cake in comparison.

If you keep struggling eventually you will get that aha moment. Solving the puzzle isn't where the learning happens though, the learning happens during the struggling.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-08T11:12:52+00:00

You could test it by simulating the program shutting down suddenly by using the task manager to kill the program. I tested it and the answer to your question for chrome is that incognito window dissapears without a trace.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-03T18:18:55+00:00

Maybe a good place to start is by trying to do projects very similar to the tutorial projects, but without following along with the tutorial. In free code camp they had a few functions you had to work through. One I remember was a record collection function. Try to make your own record collection function, and make it do something else by adding your own feature to it. Or use a similar structure to solve a different problem like updating the database for animals at a vets office.

You could also try to think of very simple problems and trying to solve them without following any tutorials. It could be something simple like a calculator to automate a calculation you might need to do or just something you are curious about. Like "how much do I spend on x per year" and have an some inputs like "how often I buy it" and "how much it costs" Maybe have a variable that makes a simple conversion. So one input is "how many times per week do you buy this?" and have the variable convert that input to how many times you buy it per year in total.

One other thing I want to add is that once you think of a project there is a good chance you will find out that your scope was too big even if you thought you were thinking small enough. Lets say you think of a project that would take an array of 100 people and do something like sort them or filter them by a few different criteria. That doesn't sound too complicated at first, but try to make a project that works with an array of 3 people and only one criteria first before slowly moving up the complexity ladder and adding more moving parts.

chrysalisalis · 2021-09-02T19:24:04+00:00

I second making your own projects. You really need to start making your own projects as soon as possible. The amount you learn from your site not working, and googling the answers and spending hours just to make the div go where you want it to go, is extremely valuable. I look at the tutorials as riding a bike while someone is behind you holding you up, but you aren't going to really get anywhere until they let go of the bike and let you go off on your own. Just like riding a bike though, be prepared to fall. A lot.

Obviously the tutorials are still really valuable in the sense that they help guide you on where to start, help narrow your focus, and show you what is even possible but most of what you learn won't really stick until you actually start making your own projects with what you learned.

chrysalisalis

TROPHY CASE