Skip to main content

Week 5-Progress

Going into week 5 I feel I am making great progress. 

 Yesterday I completed and submitted my Javascript Etch-a-Sketch project for Web Development 101. It's not perfect, but I added a couple of extra features (such as colour choice)-one improvement I could make is to change the colour choice to a radio button format and allow colour change without erasing the image.

 In the end, the project only took a few hours, but that was after going through HeadFirst books on HTML/CSS, JavaScript and jQuery. For some reason, my brain was stuck in HTML mode and I couldn't see how to create the webpage using only Javascript. Once I remembered the jQuery method of creating HTML elements, it was easy. 
I spent some time trying to figure out how to increase colour intensity with each mouseover event. The pseudocode is easy, but I can't get the Javascript syntax right-I will go back to it when my Javascript has improved.

 I spent the last day completing the Codecademy Ruby course-most of it was very straightforward (having spent a month on Java and Javascript). I haven't got blocks, procs, lambdas, classes and modules completely straight in my head yet: am I too ambitious to expect clarity after one day?

 For the Ruby basics section of Web Dev 101(The Odin Project), I am following these recommendations. That means I'm going to crack open Chris Pine's book on Learning to Program.

 I have just completed 3 Coursera courses: Data Scientist's Toolbox, R Programming and Computer Science 101. I plan to repeat R Programming in the future when I will be able to benefit more from the material.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CodeSchool vs Codecademy(or 'How socket inherits event listening methods and implements asynchronicity')

In this review I'm going to focus on the pedagogy that I see evident in some CodeSchool courses and compare them to  Codecademy. By pedagogy, I mean: 'How does CodeSchool teach?' and ' Does it do a good job of teaching?'. I'm going to argue that despite high quality videos, colourful web pages, and often ssspppeeeeeakkkiiiing...rrrreeally...slowly..., CodeSchool's pedagogy is inferior to that of Codecademy. There are many fantastic resources for learning to code on the web, and CodeSchool is one of them. So far I have completed courses in Ruby, Rails, Javascript, HTML/CSS, Jquery and Git on CodeSchool. The courses have all included high quality videos and colourful, interactive exercises- as well as  massive  pdf files of the slides ( the files take more than a minute to load on my machine .) The question is: does the higher production value mean better educational quality? The 'Try' courses on CodeSchool(such as Try Ruby and Try jQuery) are f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Algorithm Analysis - 1

Currently, I'm learning to perform algorithm analysis using Big-O notation. In one resource I found the following problem: You just dropped a box of glass toys and  n  toys in the box broke in half. You'd like to match the halves of the toys so that you could glue them together, but the only way to tell whether two halves belonged to one toy is to physically pick up the two pieces and try to fit them together. Express how long this matching process will take in terms of  n . The answer given is n^2 (n squared) with the following explanation:  You have to compare every piece with every other piece. If you have 1 toy and it breaks in half, you have 1 comparison to make. If you have 2 toys and they both break in half there are 4 pieces and you have to do 6 comparisons. If you have 3 toys, there are 6 pieces and you have to do 15 comparisons. If you have  N/2  toys, you have  N  pieces and you have to do N-1 + N-2 + N-3 + ... + 1 =(N)(N-1)/2...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ruby, RSpec, Linux and Relational Algebra (or "What I'm doing this Christmas")

Last week was challenging- I'm beginning to appreciate the need for a programming buddy.  So far, I haven't found a Ruby IDE that helps with missing brackets or illegal syntax. This means hours spent looking for errors which more experience (or an IDE) would have solved in an instant. I've spent a lot of time on Stack Exchange looking for solutions to problems that many have already had- so far I haven't had to post a single new question (though it's evident that many people post duplicate questions, not having looked for a solution first). I spent longer on the Ruby project than anticipated, BUT I really enjoyed learning about Behaviour Driven Development. Thinking of tests in RSpec and then watching my Ruby script pass (eventually) was like passing an exam (though  one I had written myself). This week I'll be starting Rails-after I complete the CodeSchool Rails courses I'll go on to their RSpec course. Partly for the geek cred, partly out of curiosit...
Post a Comment
Read more