How I got started

Pink Rock Rose

 

As mentioned in the first post, Why I'm Here, I had some extra time because I was dealing with chronic illnesses and was forced to lay down most of the time. A little fear came up. After all, my brain was foggy, my memory was not so reliable as it was, historically, and my focus was dwindling. But, I promised myself that it was worth trying something new (code). And I would only continue if I liked it. So, I started the journey that led me here, sharing how I started learning code with you.

Once I decided to look into it, I did some searching on Khan Academy. Their computer programming courses started JavaScript (JS), so that's where I started. The manipulation and creation of images was exciting (once a designer, always a designer). So far, so good. I wasn't sure where it was headed or how it was going to lead to a job, but I was doing something. I was getting a little pumped because I liked it more than I thought I would.

On a coffee date with one of my friends, while in Atlanta, I realized that she was the perfect person to ask about coding. She was a programmer. Duh. Of course. Like I said, my brain had been a little funny. 

When I asked my friend about it, she lit up. Great! She had gone to a coding boot camp in Atlanta, but I didn't have the funds to pay for something like that. She told me about some resources, some free, some with scholarships. I couldn't wait to get to my laptop to check them out. 

While frantically researching her leads, freeCodeCamp (fCC) was what stood out to me. It seemed user-friendly and accessible, and, it was free (it's in the name). They suggested starting with HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), so I abandoned JS (and Khan) for the moment. The more I used fCC, the more I saw the community that was supporting and involved with it, and the learners like me. Not just on freeCodeCamp, but online in blogs, websites, and message boards from other learning institutions. Seeing that I wasn't alone gave me a lot of hope. It was starting to feel doable. 

I kept passing the challenges. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than I thought it would be. I got through all the HTML/CSS challenges and was ready to do the design projects. Great! But wait, what? It started to feel like learning a new language, but I could only find translations here and there, not knowing how they connected. Or, more like I had to put together a 1000-piece puzzle, but most of the pieces didn’t have a picture on them. And there were a lot of opinions about how to put it together.

I started watching a video to get an idea of how others were doing the projects. They were using something called GitHub and a text editor. What are these? Do I need them? I started researching these and realized that GitHub will definitely be a part of my #code-life. My eyes crossed a little setting up, but I can see how it can be useful. But what is a text editor. To me, as a lay-person, a text editor meant, word-processing. Nope! Where is the tutorial on these, or what do I need to start coding outside fCC? Ugh!

I felt like beating my head against a wall would be more pleasant. The coding part was not so hard, but all the stuff that came with it was exhausting to figure out. Everything I was seeing confirmed to me that those who were writing about how to code had already been coding for a while. They didn't know how to get to basics.

As I started figuring stuff out, I kept thinking, I wish I had help from someone just a little bit ahead of me. Viola! Let's start a blog that shares information. I know it's probably not the only one, and I plan on sharing whatever resources I find.

I don't want to have long blog posts, so the journey will continue.