It’s week 12 of 12 here at Code Louisville. Everyone has been in high gear putting the finishing touches on their projects. Just like the first week, there is excitement in the air again! The finish line is in sight!
The deadline for project turn-in is Friday, March 31st at Noon. In addition to the excitement of finishing up projects and for many, completing their very first website or web application, there is the excitement of graduation and the satisfaction of completing an intensive 12-week course. The curriculum provides a one month break between tracks. I think we are all ready for a little break before starting the next 12-week track.
I have been working away on my web-agency/portfolio project. While I am happy with many parts of it. I have also been quite frustrated with other parts as well. I have created a number of WordPress websites. I feel very comfortable using WordPress to design a complex website, but this is only my third HTML web project. In fact, it is my very first self-designed HTML, hand-coded website. It’s also my first website that includes JavaScript. So, there has been a learning curve on this project.
I decided to put it up live on the web to gain additional practice with hosting an HTML based website. You can view it here. I’m glad I decided to live host the site because it created a few additional bugs that required me to do some work with Git and GitHub correcting file names using capitol letters vs all lowercase. I may even write that issue up in a separate blog post for anyone else having that issue on the Mac.
I have completed three HTML based projects. The first was a very basic website, following the Treehouse led course exactly. The second project was the in-class group website led by our mentors. The third was my final individual website project created based upon what I learned from the first two projects.
The real learning that took place during this course, for me, and many others, can’t just be defined by the very basic coding projects themselves. It was learning how to learn again after having been out of college for years, or for some, having never been to college at all.
It was learning how to use a text editor to write code. It was learning the answers to a thousand little questions that come up during the process of learning to code. It was learning about the IT industry. It was going to meetups. It was learning Git and GitHub. It was learning how to save and run code. It was learning how to share code. It was learning where to go when you know what you want, but are not sure what the proper syntax is.
The course and final project are now complete. What do I think, and how do I feel at this point? Well, while there is a lot more to web development than I initially realized, I am happy with the progress I made during the course. I went from only knowing WordPress to understanding the core technologies behind WordPress, namely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
I now have a base upon which to build. I have learned how to learn. And, most importantly, I’m now confident in my ability to progress and learn even more.
