Start Over Coder

When learning to code, it's important to jump into the deep end every now and then to keep leveling up. Unfortunately it didn't work out in my favor when I gave a go to Node.js!

The workshop I attended was a purposeful break from my learning plan.

I'd love to include a clear & concise definition of Node.js here (intended for total newbies), but I still haven't found one! If you know of a good one please leave a comment. Otherwise, here are some of the resources I found which provide a bit of context:

• Max Ogden's Understanding Node
• The Coding Train's What Is Node.js? (YouTube)

If you want to give Node.js a try here are some links:

• Install Node.js
• Nodeschool tutorial "workshoppers"

If you've had a rough start trying something new, or have some good Node.js resources to share, leave a comment at startovercoder.com/020 or tweet me @startovercoder.

Even when we know in theory that there are many ways to solve a problem, living with this fact in the context of programming has been a big lesson this week.

If you'd like to leave a comment you can do so at startovercoder.com, or tweet me @startovercoder.

Breaking down a problem into smaller steps is a great start, but it's not enough! This week I'm talking about what more can be done to accomplish a goal, whether that goal is some tricky algorithm scripting or changing careers.

Show Links:

• Harvard's CS50 on EdX
• Visual of the Mario exercise

This week I discovered two great (and free!) resources for learning to code. The Learn To Code With Me podcast is a great thought starter and source of inspiration. And did you know you can access Lynda.com courses for free!?

If you have another discovery that's worth sharing, leave it in the comments here or tweet me @startovercoder.

Continuing the Learn To Code series, today's episode is all about mobile apps.

The Apps:

• Mimo
• Javvy & Swifty - no website but search your app store
• Lrn
• SoloLearn
• Hopscotch
• ...and many more out there!

The Learn To Code Series:

• Ep 5: Learn To Code Overview
• Ep 6: Free Online Resources
• Ep 7: Paid Online Resources
• Ep 9: Join A Group

Have you tried an app to learn to code? Any that you recommend which weren't covered here? Let us know in the comments!

Teaching someone else to code is a great way to enhance your learning, even if you're not too far from being a beginner yourself. In this episode I'll talk about why, and how you can give it a try.

Show Links:

• Girl Develop It
• How Your Brain Learns (Lifehacker)

If you're new to programming you will undoubtedly come across GitHub & Git pretty early on. This episode describes the difference between the two, and explains how you'll use both as you learn to code.

If you're ready to get started, here are some of the beginner tutorials I found helpful when I first started using Git & GitHub:

• Install Git
• Create a GitHub account
• Tutorial to put a project from your local computer onto GitHub
• How To Do The GitHub (YouTube)
• Dev Tips 'GitHub For Noobs' video playlist (YouTube)

And once you're more comfortable, some additional resources to check out:

• How To Write a Git Commit Message
• Learn Enough Command Line To Be Dangerous

What was it like when you started learning Git? Leave a comment at startovercoder.com/014 or tweet me @startovercoder.

After a few weeks of zero productivity, I've set a new learning plan for myself to learn to code. If I'm going to be a professional full-stack developer, I need a plan.

The first step is to get over the unhelpful thoughts that stopped my progress in the first place. This episode walks through those thoughts and how to overcome them.

Then I signed up for three courses to build the foundation and to keep me on track:

• Harvard University's CS50 Intro to Computer Science
• Colt Steele's Web Developer Bootcamp on Udemy
• Joe Natoli's UX & Web Design Master Course on Udemy

In addition to the courses I've also set weekly calendar reminders to stay on track. I expect this new game plan will help me reach my goals and ideally will lead to my first job as a developer! Stay tuned & subscribe to see how it goes.

Have you organized a learning plan for yourself when learning to code? I'd love to hear what you did--leave a comment on the website or tweet me @startovercoder.

Learning to code can be really overwhelming, especially if you're doing it with the hopes to make a major life transition. The overwhelm has been hitting me over the past few weeks, and I'll unpack that in this episode.

If you've experienced the overwhelm, how did you get through it? I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment at startovercoder.com/012 or tweet @startovercoder.

I've just completed my first project where I call an API to randomly generate an inspiring quote, and this episode is all about how I did it.

One of the Free Code Camp projects that must be completed while learning JavaScript is to build a random quote generator by calling an external API, and including a button that lets people tweet the randomly generated quote. It was a great project and not as hard as I thought it would be!

Before getting started though, I spent a lot of time procrastinating. Part of that led me to the Dev Tips YouTube channel (and in particular this video), which was the inspiration behind my quote machine's video background.

Here are the other resources mentioned in the episode:

• Free video backgrounds from coverr.co
• Google Fonts
• Mashape is the API marketplace I mentioned
• Forismatic created the API I ended up using
• Working With APIs in JavaScript [video] from The Coding Train
• Random Quote Machine [video] from Stephen Mayeux

My main takeaways / things to remember from this exercise were:

• After you've written the code to call an API but before implementing its data to appear on your site, test that it's being called correctly by opening the browser console to console.log any output from the API. This way you can make sure it's working properly before integrating the API information into your site or app. [video explanation]
• My quote machine was coded using jQuery to get a new quote each time the button was clicked. The button click also annoyingly caused the whole page to reload and jump to the top, but this could be avoided by adding an event listener to the function to prevent this default action from taking place. [video explanation]

And finally, you can see the final outcome of my random quote machine on CodePen.