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Brian Flannery

Week 2 In The Books

Week 2 at the Iron Yard is done and it’s time to take a look the the struggles and the success I had, analyze them and see how I can get ready to move from HTML & CSS to Javascript.

Sunday night I woke up at 3am and could not go back to sleep. I was replaying the first week in my head and on top of class all week my family was coming in town. So much to do so little time. I was not mentally prepared to learn SASS linking and setup along with .ignorefile/.surgefiles as well as Variables and Mixins. All this information went down on paper but when I got the homework assignment and looked back, it was like seeing it for the first time. Our assignment was to build a Responsive Width Tabs website and it crushed me. By the end of the night I was pretty frustrated not only at the project but because I just didn’t retain anything.

I went to bed at 9pm to make sure I could get a full night of sleep and make sure I came in mentally ready to go on Tuesday.

Arriving to class Tuesday was a little nerve racking since I didn’t have a great assignment to show. I quickly found out that I wasn’t the only one who struggled on the homework. This made me feel a lot better knowing that I wasn’t alone. We went over the assignment together in class, answering everyone’s questions, and discussing why. I feel a lot more confident now about that assignment and was ready for our next homework, Responsive Grid Layout.

I made quick work of this assignment and felt back on top.

Wednesday we got into Grid Framewoks and Advanced GIT which I had had some practice with before. A few months before I started the Iron Yard, I was on the phone with a programmer friend of mine who helped me go through the steps to setup a live portfolio website. He gave me a tutorial on GIT and Github so this I at least had some knowledge on. The homework was a group assignment which involved real-world team oriented programming using branches, git, and github push/pull requests.

Our team started out on the wrong foot by not writing all the html first before splitting up the sections for CSS stylizing. We ran into merge conflicts every time we pushed/pulled from the master. After we got over this setback we were able to communicate as a group to make the responsive webpage for Barton Creek Bikes.

Thursday we touch on Javascript Primitive Types, Arrays and Objects, and Coercion. This was more of an overview of terms to get familiar with before jumping into Javascript land the next week.

We got our homework assignment that day as well which was to build a Responsive Skate Website with a Neat Grid Framework and SASS, Build a Basic Javascript Calculator, and a Coercion Table. Sounded like a lot but was already thinking about how to attack these challenges. Because we had spent the past 2 week on HTML & CSS I felt like the website would be the biggest project but also would have less sticking points to slow me down. I got to work on that project and was able to get a solid outline done for for small screens.

Friday I got up early to get a head start on the website. Got to lunch when took a break and looked at the Javascript calculator. It was a foreign language. I studied Javascript for the past month before the starting at the Iron Yard and again it was like seeing if for the first time. I had a meeting with my teacher and she pointed me in the right direction but still needed to review more before I could even start the project. Accessing the DOM and using querySelector were my main focus. After a couple hours I had some code which I wasn’t sure was even headed in the right direction. I was able to asking some classmates about their strategy and was relieved when my code in the ballpark. Knowing I was making progress helped me tackle the next challenge, and then the next. By the end of the day I was able to get the calculator functioning. When I saw the formula work on screen I almost jumped out of my seat! Gotta take the victories when you can.

After that I packed up and headed out to meet my family with a small on my face because I felt like I was at a point where I knew I could complete this homework.

By the end of the weekend I got everything done and turned in. The website could use some polishing but it is functioning with HTML, NEAT Grid Framework, Variables and Mixins, and SASS.

To sum the week up:

Sticking points

  • Responsive Design
  • Linking SASS and file setup
  • Javascript setup and DOM accessors

Overcoming the Challenges

  • Making sure to ask questions
  • Don’t Overthink It
  • Get SLEEP

Looking forward to Week 3 as we dive deeper into Javascript.