Day 7: February 14, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued to work on FCC and TOP. Also worked through my final project for class.

Thoughts:  know the rules say not to include coursework but this final project felt significant enough to include in my journey.  Just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have known how to do like 95% of what this project took to work, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

For TOP, today I went through the Git 101 section. To an extent, I’ve already kind of been using Git to save my personal stuff to Github, but it was nice to have this resource available to reinforce the information I already knew.

In regards to my Personal Portfolio project, today I focused almost exclusively on just cleaning up the code I’ve come up with so far and making it more efficient. I had to bust out the pencil and paper just to get my thoughts in order.

Link(s) to work:

1. Gradebook Final Project
2. Personal Portfolio Project
3. Understanding Boolean Values
4. Using Conditional Logic with If Statements
5. Comparison with the Equality Operator
6. Comparison with the Strict Equality Operator
7. Comparison with the Inequality Operator
8. Comparison with the Strict Inequality Operator
9. Comparison with the Greater Than Operator
10. Comparison with the Greater Than Or Equal To Operator
11. Comparison with the Less Than Operator
12. Comparison with the Less Than Or Equal To Operator
13. Comparisons with the Logical And Operator
14. Comparisons with the Logical Or Operator
15. Introducing Else Statements
16. Introducing Else If Statements
17. Logical Order in If Else Statements
18. Chaining If Else Statements
19. Golf Code
20. Selecting from Many Options with Switch Statements
21. Adding a Default Option in Switch Statements
22. Multiple Identical Options in Switch Statements
23. Replacing If Else Chains with Switch
24. Returning Boolean Values from Functions
25. Return Early Pattern for Functions
26. Counting Cards
27. Build JavaScript Objects
28. Accessing Objects Properties with the Dot Operator
29. Accessing Objects Properties with Bracket Notation
30. Accessing Object Properties with Variables

Day 6: February 13, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued with FreeCodeCamp and Odin Project materials.

Thoughts: I skipped a day and I’m pretty glad for it. I think I needed a mental break from everything. I also skipped the second web project until today so that I could work on some other stuff. Will likely do bits and pieces of it over time as I have actually been wanting to redo my portfolio and this is the perfect opportunity to do so. I think this will be a longer term project I can dedicate time to here and there without slowing my progress down on FCC and TOP. I like what I have been able to come up with so far, though I have my work cut out for me in terms of making my code more efficient.

In other news, the basics of JavaScript syntax seem to be really similar to Java so that’s nice. You don’t have to declare the type of variable when creating them (like String or int), but it still uses camelCase for example. I think this section will go by pretty quickly as I’m not as new to object oriented programming as I once was.

Link(s) to work:

1. Personal Porfolio Project
2. Railsbridge Installfest
3. Comment Your JavaScript Code
4. Declare JavaScript Variables
5. Storing Values with the Assignment Operator
6. Initializing Variables with the Assignment Operator
7. Understanding Uninitialized Variables
8. Understanding Case Sensitivity in Variables
9. Add Two Numbers with JavaScript
10. Subtract One Number from Another with JavaScript
11. Multiple Two Numbers with JavaScript
12. Divide One Number by Another with JavaScript
13. Increment a Number with JavaScript
14. Decrement a Number with JavaScript
15. Create Decimal Numbers with JavaScript
16. Multiply Two Decimals with JavaScript
17. Divide One Decimal by Another in JavaScript
18. Finding a Remainder in JavaScript
19. Compound Assignment with Augmented Addition
20. Compound Assignment with Augmented Subtraction
21. Compound Assignment with Augmented Multiplication
22. Compound Assignment with Augmented Division
23. Convert Celsius to Fahrenheit
24. Declare String Variables
25. Escaping Literal Quotes in Strings
26. Quoting Strings with Single Quotes
27. Escape Sequences in Strings
28. Concatenating Strings with Plus Operator
29. Concatenating Strings with the Plus Equals Operator
30. Constructing Strings with Variables
31. Appending Variables to Strings
32. Find the length of a String
33. Use Bracket Notation to Find the First Character in a String
34. Understand String Immutability
35. Use Bracket Notation to Find the Nth Character in a String
36. Use Bracket Notation to Find the Last Character in a String
37. Use Bracket Notation to Find the Nth to Last Character in a String
38. Word Blanks
39. Store Multiple Values in one Variable using JavaScript Arrays
40. Nest one Array within Another Array
41. Access Array Data with Indexes
42. Modify Array Data With Indexes
43. Access Multidimensional Arrays with Indexes
44. Manipulate Arrays with Push
45. Manipulate Arrays with Pop
46. Manipulate Arrays with Shift
47. Manipulate Arrays with Unshift
48. Shopping List
49. Write Reusable JavaScript with Functions
50. Passing Values to Functions with Arguments
51. Global Scope and Functions
52. Local Scope and Functions
53. Global vs. Local Scope in Functions
54. Return a Value from a Function with Return
55. Assignment with a Returned Value
56. Stand in Line

Day 5: February 11, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued with the Odin Project materials.

Thoughts:  Got to the point where I had to install a virtual machine to run Ubuntu. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with doing the dual boot thing so I took that route for now.

Link(s) to work:

1. Command Line Basics

Day 4: February 10, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued with FreeCodeCamp and The Odin Project materials.

Thoughts:  Codeacademy turned out to be a bust. They say that their materials are free (and I know that there are additional tools you can pay to get access to), but it stopped working at a certain point in the curriculum and just kept redirecting me to the “Upgrade Now” page, which is annoying. So I’ll try and find another resource for the Command Line. In other news, I’ll likely get to work on the Basic Front End Development Projects section starting today, so I’m pretty excited about that! Making some progress…

Link(s) to work:

1. Change the CSS of an Element Using jQuery
2. Disable an Element Using jQuery
3. Change Text Inside an Element Using jQuery
4. Remove an Element using jQuery
5. Use appendTo to Move Elements with jQuery
6. Clone an Element Using jQuery
7. Target the Parent of an Element Using jQuery
8. Target the Children of an Element Using jQuery
9. Target a Specific Child of an Element Using jQuery
10. Target Even Numbered Elements Using jQuery
11. Get Set for our Front End Development Projects
12. Build a Tribute Page (WIP)

Day 3: February 9, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued with FreeCodeCamp and The Odin Project materials.

Thoughts: I started learning more about the Command Line and have found it to be something that I will need to dedicate a decent amount of time to learning. FreeCodeCamp offered some resources to that end, but they were primarily MAC-biased and I am a Windows user, so that sucks. I’ll need to find my own material that will better guide me on Windows specifically. I’m hoping Codeacademy will turn up something interesting.

Link(s) to work:

1. A Command Line Crash Course
2. Create a Bootstrap Button
3. Create a Block Element Bootstrap Button
4. Taste the Bootstrap Button Color Rainbow
5. Call out Optional Actions with Button Info
6. Warn Your Users of a Dangerous Action
7. Use the Bootstrap Grid to Put Elements Side By Side
8. Ditch Custom CSS for Bootstrap
9. Use Spans for Inline Elements
10. Create a Custom Heading
11. Add Font Awesome Icons to our Buttons
12. Add Font Awesome Icons to All of our Buttons
13. Responsively Style Radio Buttons
14. Responsively Style Checkboxes
15. Style Text Inputs as Form Controls
16. Line Up Form Elements Responsively with Bootstrap
17. Create a Bootstrap Headline
18. House our Page within a Bootstrap Container Fluid Div
19. Create a Bootstrap Row
20. Split your Bootstrap Row
21. Create Bootstrap Wells
22. Add Elements within your Bootstrap Wells
23. Apply the Default Bootstrap Button Style
24. Create a Class to Target with Default jQuery Selectors
25. Add ID Attributes to Bootstrap Elements
26. Label Bootstrap Wells
27. Give Each Element a Unique ID
28. Label Bootstrap Buttons
29. Use Comments to Clarify Code
30. Learn How to Script Tags and Document Ready Work
31. Target HTML Elements with Selectors Using jQuery
32. Target Elements by ID using jQuery
33. Delete your jQuery Functions
34. Target the Same Element with Multiple jQuery Selectors
35. Remove Classes from an Element with jQuery

Day 2: February 8, 2017

Today’s Progress: Continued working on FreeCodeCamp curriculum and also started the Odin Project

Thoughts: What drew me to the Odin project was the fact that, according to their site, I would be building a portfolio at the same time that I am learning. My goal is to try and make a little bit of progress in both FCC and Odin each day. At the moment, there’s no “portfolio building” in FCC, at least not in the part of the curriculum that I am in. Maybe there will be later, but I don’t recall anything being explicitly stated like on Odin’s page. I’ve also started using the Pomodoro technique to better leverage my time/attention span. We’ll see how this goes.

Link(s) to work:

1. Give a Background Color to a Div Element
2. Set the ID of an Element
3. Use an ID Attribute to Style an Element
4. Adjusting the Padding of an Element
5. Adjust the Margin of an Element
6. Add a Negative Margin to an Element
7. Add Different Padding to Each Side of an Element
8. Add Different Margins to Each Side of an Element
9. Use Clockwise Notation to Specify the Padding of an Element
10. Use Clockwise Notation to Specify the Margin of an Element
11. Style the HTML Body Element
12. Inherit Styles from the Body Element
13. Prioritize One Style Over Another
14. Override Styles in Subsequent CSS
15. Override Class Declarations by Styling ID Attributes
16. Override Class Declarations with Inline Styles
17. Override All Other Styles by using Important
18. Use Hex Code for Specific Colors
19. Use Hex Code to Mix Colors
20. Use Abbreviated Hex Code
21. Use RGB Values to Color Elements
22. Use RGB to Mix Colors
23. Use Responsible Design with Bootstrap Fluid Containers
24. Make Images Mobile Responsive
25. Center Text with Bootstrap