Reflection

Reflections

It has been over 30 days since I began building a site every day and blogging about it.

To recap I am going to answer the questions, What did I do well? and What would I have done differently? (Credit goes to Brian Tracy for these questions).

What did I do well?

• Built a site every day, even if meant making something basic.
• Wrote two posts on Building a Resume and on Free Learning Resources.
• Used Ruby on Rails, AJAX, APIs. Discovered that I really enjoy JavaScript and JQuery.
• Improved my ability to Google, use StackOverflow, read documentation, learn and refactor others’ code.
• Reused, improved, and built upon my code from previous days, i.e. from using setInterval to change the Background Colors to building a Pomodoro Timer to creating a Meditation Timer. The concept/function was the same, but the complexity increased.
• Built a simple site about JavaScript Closures that helped me understand the concept by using it. I learned that sometimes the best way to learn a concept is to build it and then teach it and I am definitely going to do this more going forward…
• Focused on fun and building what I wanted, i.e. Date Calendar and the Compound Interest Calculator

What would I have done differently?

• Start as early in the day as possible to not feel rushed.
• Use more vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript. If Rails is not making my building easier, then ditch it. Plus sometimes it is great to learn and build at a lower or different level.
• Use more tutorials. If something is new to me, i.e. HTML5 Canvas, then use a tutorial. Just make sure to comment and understand everything I can and also add one or two new features if possible. Also make sure to use the tutorial(s) as a stepping stone. Basically take advantage of the crutch until I am ready to walk on my own.
• Build more simple and fun sites. The simple and fun sites are confidence boosters and also give my subconscious ideas about future sites.

What will the future hold?

I don’t know. It is like an adventure because it is scary and exciting. But here are some things I am thinking of playing with. I may not do any of this, but I may do all of these things. Time will tell….

• More Rails sites.
• Play around with more JQuery Plugins.
• Experiment with Angular, React, or Node.
• Responsive CSS design with breakpoints.
• Explain and demonstrate concepts with code.
• Add onto previous projects.
• Redo previous sites but with a different technology.
• Learn, build, and share even more….

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