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10 week update

    With the exception of the week over Christmas, I have been studying coding for every week for 10 weeks now. I estimate that I have spent 300 hours on study so far. Realistically, not all of that time was spend coding, much of it was spent reading forums looking for help, watching lectures, reading books as well as brushing up on mathematics. So, perhaps half of the time (150 hours) could truly be called coding practice.

    Without a mentor, it hasn't always been easy deciding on the path to take. I spent the first 2 weeks on Java, as that was the first course I found. Then I discovered The Odin Project and spent the last 7 weeks learning Ruby, Javascript and SQL. Over the last couple of weeks I started some Python study, including an online course.  Just before Christmas I also discovered FreeCodeCamp which focuses on Javascript. 

 I believe that I've finally discovered the best path. Last week I volunteered as a mentor at my first CoderDojo. Last night, I attended my first AgileNorthEast Meetup at Campus North in Newcastle. After chatting with people at both events, it seems that Javascript is the best language to learn. I'm therefore going to focus all my energies on FreeCodeCamp now and leave Ruby for the moment. 

 To tie up loose ends I'm going to finish a few courses that are almost complete including:

  1. Initiation a la programming en Java
  2. Foundations of Data Analysis using R
  3. Intro to CS & Programming using Python.
  4. The Odin Project sections on Javascript & HTML5/CSS3. (i.e. everything except Ruby).
I'll be starting MOOCs on Algorithms and Linear Algebra in a couple of weeks which should be very interesting as well.

Onwards & Upwards!


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