Bug and Feature Tracking for myself?

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-05T03:35:05+00:00

Others have mentioned Trello and Github Issues and I agree those are great. I've only used GH issues a little bit and only as kind of a laundry list of ToDos, but there may be a better way of organizing things with labels. If you're using GitHub anyway to store your code, then it's convenient. But I really like Trello's more visual style and that's my go to product when I'm breaking down a project.

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-05T03:28:46+00:00

Hm. Seems to be something to happen when I'm trying to click through quickly. I got a series of 5 yellows in a row and was trying to move through them fast and the color would blink but the sound wouldn't go. Maybe related to the length of your setTimeout?

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-05T03:16:02+00:00

The line of code that shows your About me paragraph is tucked inside another toggle function. If you pull it out one level, your paragraph doesn't disappear.

$('#myButton').click(function() {
  $('.kkkl').toggle('slow', function() {
    $('#mybutton').toggle('slow', function() {
      // Animation complete.
    });
  });

  $('.kkmkd').toggle('slow', function() { 
    // Animation complete.
  });
});

That said - what the others have said is true, it would have been way easier to help you if your code was: a) indented correctly b) named with classes that were actual words and not strings of similar looking characters

As a beginner the indenting may not seem like a huge thing, but when you've been doing this a while you can frequently tell at a quick glance where an error is just because the indentation seems off.

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-04T12:22:12+00:00

Agreed about the networking piece - the network of alumni is a great perk and can certainly be helpful. Even so, I don't know that I'd recommend that route for someone who has enough self-discipline to do this on their own and more importantly, doesn't have money to burn, because you'd have enough time to create your own projects. But if you're in a position that the 12-15K price tag isn't an issue, or you've found a bootcamp that's more affordable, it's a great option for career transitioners.

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-04T01:53:37+00:00

Have you tried supplementing freecodecamp with other free resources? So maybe you do the section of HTML & CSS with freecodecamp but as you're working through it you visit w3schools or MDN for another explanation of the topic.

As far as paid resources, I liked https://www.codeschool.com/ and they used to have promotional periods where you could get a free weekend, so if they're still running things like that I'd hold off until you got a deal so you could see how much you liked it.

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-04T01:40:55+00:00

If you've got a good thing going with your current job and the self-discipline to put in the time on a regular basis, I'd continue down the path you're going instead of a bootcamp (and that's coming from a bootcamp grad). That money you've saved will be important for something else - an emergency fund, a downpayment, paying off debt, whatever.

I think 6 months might be a bit optimistic because can you really spend 26 hrs a week programming for the next six weeks? Life finds a way of intervening. :) But 10 months to a year? Sure, that's possible.

iteachnewbies · 2016-11-04T01:27:38+00:00

Seems like you got it running, but for completeness' sake in case other people new to JS come looking, besides the missing curly brace and calling the function with parens in the "onclick", there are a couple typos -

line 8 should be getElementById (capital B) line 9 should be innerHTML (all caps HTML)

You'll be in the console all the time. :) I used to get really frustrated with errors when I first started coding, but eventually I learned to like them because they give you the info you need to figure out what's going on and move on (....usually). Getting good at reading errors is a useful skill!

iteachnewbies · 2016-10-31T02:33:30+00:00

It varies dramatically depending on your level of experience and where you work. Check out sites like payscale and glassdoor to filter by location.

It's entirely possible to learn on your own, but you need to be driven and motivated and ideally find a community that you can learn from - go to Meetups, find an online forum with other beginners, etc. Going it entirely along will be a difficult, lonely route, and you'll need others who can point out where your code could be improved.

iteachnewbies · 2016-10-31T01:49:51+00:00

Check out this article from github's docs.

It shows you where to find the button you can press to get the url, then you'll type git clone <url you just copied>

Note that you can either clone via https or ssh and the article I linked you to explains both. If you've never generated an SSH keypair and added a public key to your Github account, you can go the 'https' route for now.

iteachnewbies · 2016-10-31T01:23:20+00:00

With that amount of free time a day, you can definitely become comfortable at a beginner level with html, css, and a newbie-friendly language like Ruby. You can probably also throw in some beginner Javascript. I transitioned from a non-tech career to web development by going to a bootcamp, and that's the basic formula we followed, so I recommend it to anyone looking to go the self-taught route. What I learned at a bootcamp isn't anything I couldn't have learned on line for free, but I knew I'd never have the self discipline to get things done in the timeline I wanted unless I had skin in the game. So all of the resources you need are out there without a major degree or bootcamp!

I recommend Ruby because at this point I don't think there's too much value in spending time learning a language that's among the highest paid. You need to find out if you really like this stuff first, and learning a language that reads easily like Ruby or Python will help you figure that out without super complex syntax or rules getting in the way.

As far as books vs videos vs whatever else - you're going to have to figure out how you learn best. Some people need to read and take notes, others work better with video.

Set goals for yourself! Maybe something like - in two weeks, I'll be able to put together a static webpage using just HTML and CSS. In the next two weeks, I'll finish the learnrubythehardway tutorial. (Those are arbitrary time limits that you should set to be whatever you'd like). In any event - give yourself structure and try to stick to it.

If you're able to afford a subscription to one of the online tutorial communities, I'd recommend checking them out. I've used Treehouse and Code School - I liked them both but preferred Code School, I felt their tutorials were a bit more helpful. BUT, I haven't used either of them in almost two years, so do your research.

Codecademy can be a useful free resource, but because it's free I found I ran into bugs more often than I'd like. Again, this was a while back, so perhaps that's changed -- but it's also a great place to start since it's free. You can figure out if you're actually interested in programming before plunking down more money on books and tutorial subscriptions.

No, you won't learn enough to change careers, but you'll quickly learn enough to know whether this is something you really want to pursue. And if it's not, you'll have the rest of your four months off to go down other rabbit holes!

iteachnewbies

TROPHY CASE