Today’s Progress: Today I solved my friend’s issues with their Squarespace website. Also, I got my other friend started on their freeCodeCamp Responsive Web Design projects.
Thoughts: Today I did something I can’t remember the last time I did: help someone I know with my coding knowledge. My friend had some issues with their personal website and I offered to fix them. The problems they were having seeemed easy. If I was able to look into the code of the website and change it, I would have been able to fix the problems easily. However, I was constained by using the Squarespace framework. What would be a simple task like adding a background image to a page was suddenly difficult because I had to learn how to make it work within Squarespace. Fortunately, I was able to adapt and actually did fix the issues with my friend’s website. Hooray! Even better than this was getting another friend of mine to begin their projects for the Responsive Web Design certification by freeCodecamp. I love teaching others beacuse it helps me to recognize what I know and what I don’t know (like what is utf-8). They asked terrific questions (like should they place the header within the main section), which tells me they are really absorbing the material and putting it into practice. I have felt more productive today than a lot of other days before.
Today’s Progress: “Completed the Gatsby tutorial”
Thoughts: “Today’s Progress” is what I posted for my Twitter status for today. However, it is a lie. I have not completed the Gatsby tutorial… yet. I felt after skipping another day between Day 2 and Day 3 this pressure to impress my imaginary Twitter fans with amazing progress. Ultimately, I have just disappointed myself. There is this just this horrible feeling inside for cheating. It is like when I am on a diet and I go crazy at a fast food restaurant. There is some instant gratification while I am eating it however the effects just make sick afterwards. There is no reason to lie about my progress. I need to be honest with myself throughout this entire challenge. Only be sincerely reflecting after reach day will I best be able to prepare myself for the next day. I did work on Part Five of the Gatsby tutorial, which goes over Source Plugins. I realized how much seemingly more complex Gatsby makes things (though I’m sure it is actually making such a website much easier). No longer can I just import an image from my local file system but I must use the gatsby-source-filesystem.
Links to work:
Today’s Progress: Completed Part Four of the Gatsby Tutorial
Thoughts: Here is an interesting fact: the average amount of steps I took a day dramatically decreased once I started the challenge in March. I definitely forgot the importance of exercise to my mental health. While I feel accomplished by making progress with coding, it does not provide the same dopamine effect that exercise provides my body and mind. As I mentioned yesterday, I experienced a lot of stress towards the end of my inital attempt at this challenge. I did try to escape the pains of life but the stress remained inside me. Exercise provides a healthy release of this build up. Moving forward, I will make sure to make exercise a priority over code. I will not be able to complete this challenge properly if I do not properly take care of myself. There is a gap between Day 1 and Day 2 and obtaining enough exercise is the reason why. I do not feel guilty. The Gatsby tutorial provided a high level overview of GraphQL. I understand that it is a query language (invented by Facebook) to describe the data that I want in a component.
Links to work:
Today’s Progress: Completed Part Three of the Gatsby Tutorial. Soon enough, I will have a website and a blog
Thoughts: Today I restart the #100daysOfCode challenge. To be honest, I had not realized it has been so long since I stopped this challenge. I lost track of time, which I guess is a normal thing during COVID quarantine. However, it is not an excuse. Ultimately, my focus vanished. There were some issues outside of myself that distracted me. In the past, this challenge has been an escape from issues, however the bullshit I faced in the month of June was too much for me to handle. Fortunately, things have settled back down. And here I am, restarting this journey again. This Gatsby tutorial is simple but intense. Following the directions is easy. However, there is a lot that is going on behind the scenes that I do not understand. Such is life with programming. I feel like I am in an ocean and this tutorial is my floatation device. Without it, I would probably sink to the bottom. However, as I get more comfortable, I am sure that I will be able to swim soon. Going over Nested Components was great because it reminded of one reason why React is great, I can change the header on multiple pages with just one file.
Links to work: