Dipping My Toes in Python 🐍

Last week was the Thanksgiving holidays, but I still found a little bit of time between social gatherings and other commitments to learn developing.

I finished the Pre-Coding Bootcamp on Udemy—really enjoyed it, overall. Gave me insight (however small) into so many things I was ignorant about: how computers work, browsers work, internet works, how operating systems communicate with hardware, etc. Definitely recommend to anyone as clueless as I am embarking on this journey.

I discontinued the LinkedIn project because it was boring and uninspiring. Instead, I used my basic HTML and CSS skills to build a Cristiano Ronaldo fan page (hater, I’m sorry). It was a good chance to practice some styling, branding, and positioning with some context already. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with it. It’s simple and not finished—but the framework is built to basically copy and paste the fundamental elements to create additional sections and what not. A fellow employee at work showed me more about inspecting page elements to learn from the best, so I took some ideas from Lebron James homepage. I made sure to understand the code and what it was doing (and if I could manipulate it entirely), but some of it was still a little difficult to grasp. But, in the end, I got it to do what I wanted it to do, and, I’m happy enough at this point.

While riding around in the car, I downloaded Udacity and began taking some Intro to Programming courses on there. Super simple and basic. Just learning Python syntax, variables, strings, etc. Also, starting taking a beginners Python course on Udemy, too. So far it’s covered the exact same thing, just within IntelliJ IDEA (their recommended IDE) rather than within the host’s platform. So far, I’m feeling pretty confident about everything. Nothing too far over my head, fortunately. It’s the vastness of knowledge I need to consume that’s my biggest challenge right now. Just need to calm down, break it down into bite-sized pieces, and take my time…

It’s hard getting into a solid flow right now because of all the holiday distractions. In just a few weeks, I’ll be flying to Virginia for Christmas break, so building any permanent habit between now and then is difficult. This morning was the first early morning I focused on coding. Woke up at 5am and practiced/studied until 7am. Planning on continuing this at least 3–4 days a week for now, and then maybe bump up the hours or days starting in January. For some reason, the monotony of my job right now as a Social Media Manager is driving me insane. I need a challenge. I need something hard. I need to get deeper into this software engineering path.

But first…patience.