Looking back after a 100 days

Earlier this week I completed the #100DaysOfCode Challenge.

For beginners it is important that you constantly keep coding so that you apply the skills that you learn without loosing touch or forgetting what you learn. In the beginning implementing projects after completing a course can be intimidating but places like FreeCodeCamp and Chingu-cohorts offer a plethora of ideas of new projects for all levels of developers.

I did not entirely follow all the rules, like for example, I did not tweet my progress daily, because I’m not that active on social media. Instead I daily updated my logs on GitHub. Sharing my progress on twitter would have improved by social networking and I would have been a part of the #100DaysOfCode community. Lately I have also seen people sharing their progress on LinkedIn. A great way to make people notice you as a budding developer. I also counted the time spent on doing online course assignment projects because I wanted to learn back end coding as fast as possible. I had done enough experiments with just front end tools in the first half of 100 days.

You coded for a 100 days. Big deal! So what?

A lot of people who have entered into the world of programming have been coding for months or even years. Why does it matter if you completed this challenge?

If you read the rules and the FAQ carefully, you see that you make a commitment to yourself, to sit for an hour everyday to work on actual projects. This matters a lot, especially for a new developer. You will have cool projects to show off in your portfolio, in just 100 days. When you look back at your progress after a 100 days of sincere coding, trust me, you will be proud of yourself! :)

Here is my log for the 100 days.

Some projects that I completed during the challenge:

1. Pure CSS Images — A bear, an elephant and a beaver
2. FCC front-end projects (Completed front-end certification)
3. A Momentum clone app as a virtually collaborated project (from Chingu)
4. Pure Javascript projects
5. Built a web app using angular and learnt about gulp and grunt
6. Learnt VueJS and built some front end projects
7. Built a wiki-bot for messenger
8. Built a slack-bot (Chingu project)

This is just the beginning. Many more such 100 days to come.

“In some ways, programming is like painting. You start with a blank canvas and certain basic raw materials. You use a combination of science, art, and craft to determine what to do with them. You sketch out an overall shape, paint the underlying environment, then fill in the details. You constantly step back with a critical eye to view what you’ve done. Every now and then you’ll throw a canvas away and start again. But artists will tell you that all the hard work is ruined if you don’t know when to stop. If you add layer upon layer, detail over detail, the painting becomes lost in the paint.”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master