Finding my direction: BarCamp Philly- A first time attendee’s account of the unconference

It’s been two weeks since Philly BarCamp, my first unconference. I didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to be exactly what I needed at the right time.

I had heard positive comments about BarCamp, and an equal number of criticisms of unconferences. The most preparing I did was to learn what an “unconference” was: a crowd sourced conference with little to no theme. This description feels vague, and that’s kind of the point. Without knowing the talks I’d be hearing, I was anticipating the event with a nervous energy, wondering what to expect.

I haven’t brought up politics on this blog for many reasons, but this feels to be the right time to mention a few things about me. I try to be as centrist as I can, but know that I almost always fall on the liberal side of things. I dislike  American political parties: I see them simply as illicit machines that mute democratic voices by quieting opposing voices. I also have a mean contrarian streak. There aren’t many groups I cannot find something to disagree with. I say this because if you told me I’d have a chance to vote for someone who wasn’t a career politician, someone who had spent their life outside the system, who wanted to upend the system? I would have thought I’d be first in line. But, the only thing I mistrust more than a politician is a business man that inherited their fortune. This election hit me harder than I thought it would, but as a history addict, I immediately thought of other times of uncertainty and tried to draw on them as ways to plan a course of action.

With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why I’d be skeptical of any planning talks. The news was too new to not act without undisciplined anger.

Or so I thought.

The morning started out meeting so many new faces, connecting through a network of friends old and new. I even ran into an old coworker of mine from a map store I worked at in college. I was told BarCamp would be good for networking, which proved true early and often. I got to talk to people who have made the career change into tech. Everyone seemed so encouraging, warm, and friendly.

The first talk I attended was about running for local office. Local government affects you in a more direct/mundane way than the federal government. This talk laid out the steps needed: petitioning to be on the ballot, what priorities should be if/when elected, how tech can help both manage the job, but also to interact with constituents, etc.  #Swoon

The next talk was about volunteerism: something I’ve deeply committed to this year. Unfortunately for me, this was presented from the scope of Harry Potter, a franchise I know close to nothing about. Less than 5 minutes, realizing I getting lost in jargon, I ducked out. I hope it was useful for others, but I understood next to nothing.

The session I used to supplement the Potter universe was about dealing with stress. As a once burned out teacher, I found this rather interesting. Coping mechanisms were shared, leaving attendees with actionable take always. A few days later I would sit through a workshop at work about “Working smarter, not harder” that left me with no take always. This made me even more appreciative of this talk.

I then broke for lunch with new and newer friends, all met through Code for Philly.

After lunch, I braved a talk about Google Analytics. It was dry, informative, and useful. There’s not more to say, as it seemed to be a crash course introduction that seemed to pack as much as it could for this setting. The only downside of this for me was that I had eaten a large helping of shrimp fried rice at lunch, leaving me to battle the effects of a food coma.

The next talk I attended was about leadership styles, and knowing what kind of situations allow people to thrive. Again, with the backdrop of the election, this proved to be a low key gem of the day. It broke down different types of operating styles of folks, and by understanding your style, knowing how to best to make an impact on a team.

I ended the day with a look to the future of civic tech through the lens of a futuristic look back. Mjumbe Poe laid out his forecast for the future through 2035, titled Cyborg City. Having not heard of civic tech before February, it proved to be illuminating for where it was, where it is, and where it can be.

Threading these talks gave me the blueprint for action I was looking for after the election: Thinking nationally, acting locally. BarCamp gave me the seeds for actionable ideas. At the after party, I met a gentleman named Stephen that found out about BarCamp through live tweets during the event.Researching the schedule online, he left his place in West Chester to get to West Philly, wanting to engage in a community to develop ideas for meaningful responses towards the election. Tapping into his skill set, he’s looking to join the data team on Leverage. Actionable steps to take part in a community and cause change, exactly what was needed for me and others.

Thank you BarCamp!

Reflecting on #CaaSH: Looking Back on the First Time I Helped to Organize a Hackathon

It has now been a week since CaaSH, the City as a Service Hackathon kicked off. I had such an exhilarating time, and won’t soon forget the first hackathon I helped organize. From the organizing team, to all the new project teams, it has been amazing to see these collaborative groups come together. I am very excited to see what the teams have to show in a couple weeks, after a month long sprint. This will focused on my experience with organizing the event-so far.

My last post was an attempt to let people know I was still active, dropping a line to touch in. These last couple months have been a lot of fun, albeit at the expense of many items on my to-do list. But, that’s one of the reasons I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

My original interest in joining the hackathon planning group was to offer help the day of. To arrive early to move things, get set up and help check people in. Well… I did do that. But, I ended up doing more. A lot more.

On a daily basis, my agenda had time critical actions. It became a second job for me, forcing me to learn how to effectively manage my time both at work and at home. (My wife may disagree, but I’m getting better!) My time as a teacher helped with this, but that was one job. This project felt as if I had two jobs. Also, teaching was more of an individual endeavor, whereas CaaSH was a team project.

My office utilizes shared drives and shared documents, but we do not use much else for collaboration software. We use SourceTree for Git, but my role doesn’t offer me a chance to make commits often. Working with CaaSh opened my eyes to Slack, and wow is it fun. I’ve used Slack some with my other Code for Philly project, Leverage, but much of the hackathon planning happened through our dedicated Slack channel. The group has a great sense of humor, and I learned the fun aspects of Slack like custom emojis and giphy posts. But I also learned about polls and how to archive important posts and integrate tools.

Slack is fun and incredibly useful, but there were other tools used that aren’t as snazzy. Google Docs/Hangouts, Trello, and Uber Conference allowed the team to share information in real time and meet without having to be in the same room.  Far quicker and in a more organized fashion than had we relied on emails or in person meetings. Many of the organizers met in real life for the first time the day of the event.

Making the logo was an exercise in patient iteration. As I mentioned before, being an art teacher, especially at multiple schools at once, much of what I did felt like it was working in isolation. I would do what I could to help with overall climate and single school objectives, but my classroom was my classroom. It was the only one that was an art room. Planning the hackathon was a great team project. I was able to feel as part of a team in a professional manner more so than any other time I can remember. Every time I submitted a new iteration of the logo design, I felt that I needed the team feedback more than I needed to be finished. What I was doing would represent the project as a whole, and by extension, the people who were working so hard to help plan. I needed to hear their voices for me to feel finished. No matter how good the design might be, if they didn’t approve, it didn’t matter.

I guess you can see how much of an impact this team approach left on me. While most of this post has been about what I learned, this project was about the team’s efforts. Dawn McDougall, the Executive Director of Code for Philly set the tone early. Dawn has been organizing hackathons for Code for Philly nearly by herself, so this was a chance to delegate one for the first time. She made sure to celebrate each person. She also allowed some autonomy for taking the lead on anything someone wanted to work on. That isn’t how most companies work-at least not those that where I’ve worked. The fact that I had a chance to explore areas that I might find interesting was an invaluable experience. Each person on the team contributed based on their interests and skills. Not based on job title. As someone who often gets frustrated with bureaucratic workflows, this was a breath of fresh air.

There were mistakes along the way. Nothing I can think of as egregious. More like learning opportunities. I did end up doing what I originally set out to do, but am so thankful for the chance to do so much more. I had no intention of creating a logo, taking the lead on social media, or running a twitter chat. Both personal and team success from this event means I’ll be looking to work on another hackathon soon. Or, maybe I already am…

Catching my breath: Comments about work that is yet to be seen

I know I haven’t updated this in a while. The activity here doesn’t match the work I’ve been doing.

It’s strange to look back on old posts and see my trepidation at attending my first meet up and first Hackathon. To look back to that first step out into the real world of coding, and socializing with people that know much more than I do.  I’m now engrossed with volunteer projects that have been occupying much of my free time, and maybe some of my not free time.

Continuing my work on the Leverage project, I’ve added two other projects from Code for Philly to sharpen my skills with. One is in a fertile stage that I’ll keep under wraps. The other is the City as a Service Hackathon (#Caash)

Risking the whitest pun available, #Caash has been ruling everything around me. (Cream, get the money!)

Initially, I just wanted to offer my time to help with day of activities. Leverage will be working during it, but I figured I’d show up early to check people in, get to know a few folks to network with, then get started on the Leverage work. But then the first conference call happened.

My intentions this year was to focus on coding. Not design. I’m not the best designer, but those skills are much sharper than my HTML/CSS skills, let alone any other language. Because of this, it feels strange to me to make the hackathon logo and other promotional materials. Somehow I’ve become the communications team leader of sorts. What happened to sticking to coding? Well, no one else seemed to want to do it. I have the knowledge base, so why not contribute any way I can?

So here I am. About 9 months into my new Year’s Resolution to get better at coding. I don’t have much to show, but I know I’ve learned a lot so far. And one of the best parts: I feel like I found a place that I can contribute, feel supported, and can gain incredible job experience. And, now I’m contemplating marketing positions as a viable career path.

This blog may seem inactive, but I haven’t been.

Finding content to create with

It has been a long time since I updated this blog. I’ve been somewhat less active with coding in the sense of learning, and more focused on the application of and creating. A little update:

Since my last post, I started to focus on making things. I was working on projects with FreeCodeCamp, and was enjoying it, but then there came the project for a portfolio site. I already wanted a portfolio to show people what I know so that I could apply to a job should the opportunity present itself. But what content would I use to fill the portfolio site? My blog? That’s it? If I wanted to switch my career into web design and development, a spiffy site would help my chances.

I started to research portfolio sites and design company sites for ideas. I had a few, but the idea of showing actual work continued to be a problem, as I didn’t feel I had enough experience to showoff on a site. There would be a gaping hole on the site once I tried to link to work experience. I knew I needed to fill that spot with content.

I think finding or creating content for a start up designer can be tough. I know I have the skills to make something look nice, but what is it that I’ll be making look nice? I’ve had some … “interesting learning experiences” from working with people before I was ready. I’m 90% sure I’m ready to make a site, but that other 10% comes from those voices of doubt in my head. Turns out, that 10% can be much louder than the silent majority in my head.

Bending to the will of doubt, I started to look to myself to see what I had to offer for content. I went to school for art education, and I’ve made a lot of art over my life, but a few months ago I made the conscious decision to abandon drawing and painting. I am sure I’ll return to it one day. It’s hard to completely turn your back on something that you’ve been doing since before you can remember. Two reasons led to this decision: unhappiness with the work I was making, and to focus more attention on coding and my goals for a career change. I donated many of my remaining supplies to the neighborhood school, and got rid of a lot of my earlier work. But I didn’t get rid of my camera.

Photography has become my sole source of artistic expression over the past year or so. While eliminating drawing and painting, I’ve been able to focus my attention on photography. I work with digital, and take a lot of photos. Enough that I realize I had the content I was looking for. What I thought would be a quick lead up to organizing some photographs for a site became a much larger project that I endeavored.

I’ve spent well over two weeks going through photographs, trying to figure out how to organize it. In doing so, I learned a lot about myself as a photographer. I rarely ever go back and look at my old photos; the joy of shooting something was enough for me. Going back over years of photographs was a illuminating activity for me.

Before organizing my photographs, I also did some research. I found many photographers’ sites that gave me ideas on how to present my work. I’ve also looked at sites that might not be as obvious as others: sites like Philly.com and other news sites. I wanted  to see how to present photographs in a more functional, rather than formal context. Extrapolating ideas from unlikely sources has given me a better sense of how I want to present my work.

By now, you may be wondering where the site is. Currently, it’s on paper and in my head. There is functionality I don’t know how to create. Yet. Over the next couple days and weeks, I plan to pour over web site source codes to start to take apart and tinker with ideas. I know I’m making it harder on myself to start from scratch, but what I learn from this process will help me to finally have something to place into my web designer portfolio site.

Resources for new coders

I want this post to act as an incomplete list of resources that are helpful to new coders. It is not exhaustive for many reasons, one of which is because this does not come from research. I’ve found each of these resources in different ways. Either stumbling on them somehow or by word of mouth. Each of the resources to follow I have found helpful. It is my hope that by organizing them here, someone might find something helpful.

CS50: Harvard University Introduction to Computer Science. The course is available online for free. You can enroll through edX.org, or watch the lectures from each week. I found this helpful because of the way I’ve learned computers. Computers have always been around me, and I’ve learned from my own experiences. But this way of picking up information can often lead to gaps in knowledge. This course was helpful in filling gaps in my knowledge of how it all works together. The instructor David Malan is entertaining and easy to follow, though he does move fast. The Shorts are helpful supplementary videos to the lectures. If you don’t know what is happening when a website is loaded from the server, this course could be helpful for you.

CodePen.io: If you like tearing things open to see how they work, this site is for you. If you want to see how code works by comparing the code and the end result, this site is also for you.

CodePen almost harkens back to an old HTML standard of frames. Three frames along the top house code for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Below is the pen, a frame that displays the code from above. Change the code above, see how it affects the display and behavior below. You can fork other people’s work to their code.

CodeNewbie.org: If you’re new to coding and don’t know about CodeNewbie, it is an amazing resource. CodeNewbie is a community that nurtures its participants to help from feeling overwhelmed. They have a message board, the podcasts, and the weekly Twitter chat. Here is a recent example of on of their Twitter Chat questions. The topic is like the theme of this blog post: https://twitter.com/codenewbies/status/722962585780264964

Slack: it’s a chat room styled communication platform. Use their website or download their app. Each Slack team has channels, which are themes. CodeNewbie has a Slack team, with a channel for anything you’re looking for. These are great places to actively take part by asking questions or passively by reading along with the discussions.

Slack is something you might have to get invited to. As in the case for CodeNewbies. But, it’s an automated process. Follow the directions on their site, and you’ll be in shortly.

CodeCademy: Free tutorials inside their IDE help guide you through specific programming languages. Learn Python, Ruby, Command Line Git, or any other of their large selection. You can start with their simple HTML and CSS course, or learn programming through JavaScript. There’s a premium option, but if you’re focused, you most likely won’t need it.

Code for Philly: This is a local group that is great of coders to develop skills. As they say, it’s a place to go from level 1 to level 2. They don’t offer classes, but support and opportunities to meet other coders. They have big on civic minded projects, and have hackathons built around this concept. If you are in the Philadelphia area, you should check them out.  They also have Slack.

Meetup.com: This has been invaluable for me. Networking and meeting new people can be scary, but it can be easier when  you share common interests. Through meetup.com, I found Code for Philly, which is a great resource for me. I’ve also found other meet ups that have helpful talks. I found it helpful to  see what other people are doing. I even signed up for a hackathon because of discussions I had at meet ups.

I implore you to go out and meet coders nearby. They have resources like these, but probably better. Many of the resources I’m listing here came from suggestions from people I’ve met through meet ups. As I stated in the beginning, this list is not extensive. A list made by someone researching coding resources would have more links. Over the last couple months, I’ve found myself returning to these resources for help. Because of this, I wanted to share.
If you have any extra places, please share below in the comments.

Hack for Democracy

Code for Philly hosted  Apps for Philly Democracy Hackathon: 2016 this past weekend. This weekend event started on a Friday night. Of course, for me, this event started well before Friday. This blog was started to highlight my intent to get serious about coding as my new year’s resolution. Now, three and a half months in, this was to be a great test to my gauge new skills.

Friday night was the kick off. A time for everyone who had a stake in the outcome to come together and brainstorm. In the caucus room of City Hall were politicians, coders,  and creative citizens. Together we offered ideas for how technology can help citizens of a democracy. Many concerns centered around access to information and connection to community resources. These concerns came with solutions using technology. Ideas were written on large paper. Then, people could add  post its for comments, and star stickers for ideas that excited them. Together, we drafted ideas that would become the pool of ideas to work on the next day.

Friday night was easy for me. I added to some ideas, liked others, and discussed a few with the originators. I sought out advice for preparing myself for my first hackathon. I talked to  some people I’ve been seeing at various meet ups. I saw this whole event as a gauge. Friday was a barometer, which gave me a sense I was where I needed to be developmentally.

Saturday was when the gardening began with the seeds from Friday night’s ideas planted. Groups of strangers with like minded interests convened around projects that grabbed their attention. Conversations began, introductions made, and laptops plugged in. At a rapid pace, parameters were set up, repositories created, and data accessed. The plants were starting to grow.

This first real day was mostly a blur to me. I was anxious to get started and anxious to prove to myself that I developed enough to contribute. I sat in awe at the conversations these strangers had. Periodically I understood what they were saying. The longer the breaks in between, the more I felt out of place. I was not prepared. I answered “Do you know…” with “… no.” Too often. R DBs,Postgres, Django, Angular: a list of totally unfamiliar to somewhat familiar terms. I feared that my worst fear of the weekend was coming true.

There were discussions that had little to do with coding that I really enjoyed, though. Who do we see utilizing this information? Who do we want to use this information? How do we present this information to them? How do we create access to the information for every stakeholder? The confines of time met with the scope of these questions, and we started to drive down to what minimum viable product would look like. These questions drove my focus of how to present this data. The answers that started to formulated in my head met with a familiar sense of ability. I finally felt like my skills were ready to contribute.

The first task I really had was how to take data and present it real time with charts on a website or app platform? Old nightmares of Probability and Statistics came back to haunt me. Suddenly, I was back in my freshman year data analysis class. Thankfully, opinions about graph styles and chart decisions were offered up to allow me to act like I knew what I was looking for.

Then came the point that my neurosis met with my ADHD. Fear of failure made me lose focus, so I got up to take a walk. Googling on my phone as I walked around, I found a list of charting services. I found one that made sense to me. Google Charts! My first real contribution. I even got to link it in the github and slack channel. First taste of success!

The time from when I researched for layout ideas for the  prototype was the most blurry time of the weekend. It also was the only time I felt like I truly contributed within the coding aspect of this project.  But, in the span of the weekend work, I did feel fairly inadequate comparing where I hoped I was to where I am. Having that measuring stick is a very important part of development, so I cherished this part most on a personal level. It is exactly what I wanted for myself from this experience.

Saturday came to an end with a sense of relief from being able to push my files to our GitHub. This was thanks to so small contribution to a team member, who patiently worked with me through the command line. After the final push, I retreated home to allow my brain to relax.

Sunday morning was the mad dash, if you want to call five hours of fine tuning a dash. It began as awkward introductions, now culminating into a presentation out our”minimum viable project.” We just needed to added our finishing touches. But, I found a problem with the charting technology we were planning on using. It might have difficulty displaying more than one chart per page. I created one page with a series of anchor tags for the sake of our MVP, so this wouldn’t just be a small problem. We would have to rethink our visualization model.

Thanks to my team members, this draw back was handled in a way that made me feel better about my failed suggestion . They rolled with the change like champs. I was frantically texting knowledable friends while my team just changed tactics.

Instead of live charts, we went with static images. They were charts built from the data that wouldn’t be changing, anyway. As the deadline drew ever closer, I worked with a teammate on adding them to the site. Myever present fear of the clock helped draw my attention to the need to simplify our tact. Just make img src tags, set the size, and fix it when we reconvene after today. Owing to the sense of unity developed over the weekend, I had no problem asserting myself into this fix, and making it happen. What was best, it worked.  And just in time. A git push with just a few minutes to go, and we were finished with our minimum viable product.

As a the presentations began, I started to feel like I was catching my breath. This was strange, as I hadn’t given a second thought to my breathing cadence until then. I sat back, beginning to slowly relax.  I really enjoyed  watching the amazing projects that the other teams presented.

My bias may show in the fact that I liked our group’s project most. Out of the five projects presented, two had begun being  worked on before the weekend. As proud as I felt with product my group had done, the overall contributions from all contributors was amazing. Strangers came together to create for the greater good.

After the presentations, as groups said their goodbyes, our group planned our next move. The group planed how to organize a way forward beyond this weekend, and set up a date in the future to get back to work.

I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work with for my first hackathon. Yes, I did not feel that my skills were where I wanted them to be. But, I was able to experience working on a project for the first time with a group.  And with a group that was patient, collaborative, and knew their core strengths. They were eager, knowledgeable, happy to assist, and passionate about the project. I’m extremely excited to work with this group moving forward. And, hopeful that I can focus my learning in ways that can help contribute more to the project.

 

Here is a list of all projects from the 2016 Hack for Democracy.

Here is a list for our project repo: Leverage.

Web A Tact

What do you do when you’re stuck? When you’re faced with a concept that you just cannot grasp?

I ran into a block. I was having difficulty figuring out the solutions to CodeAcademy’s JS Object lessons. I was completing the tasks, but I wasn’t fully grasping what they were trying to teach me. This became evident in subsequent lessons where I started to rely heavily on the messageboard “Q&A Forum.” I began using this for clarification for errors, then to find shortcuts, and eventually using the forum as my starting point. The forum became my cheat code source so I could move through the course.

I had a problem. I was not actually learning the concept, but rather, learning how to cheat my way through. I stepped back. A new tact was needed, to change my approach. There is a wealth of information out there about JavaScript and the concept of objects in it, so I went elsewhere. Online videos at Lynda.com, Google searches, and even a book.

I still do not have a full grasp on objects. I know there are two ways to create them, I can recognize the differences visually. I know methods act as functions for objects, but how that shakes out I’m not certain.

I am certain of this: if one source cannot explain a concept for me, there are others. I wake early to get learning in, but it does me no help to copy and paste other code in to move forward in a course. I can do that while at work, or watching TV. That’s not why I get out of bed in the dark and stumble to the computer. Performing a rote task is not going to help me.

Moving forward, I hope I can remind myself of this lesson from time to time, as I am sure I will forget it. When I’m faced with a concept that I am having a hard time grasping, change my access point to the information. I am not incapable of learning this, I am just currently working incompatibly with my current method on learning.

Routine…

This morning I encountered errors with a JavaScript program. The code wasn’t working. Still isn’t, actually. I ran out of time.

I only have about 90 minutes to get through as much as I can. The alarm goes off at 5am. The next alarm-the alarm that previously would wake me for getting up for work-signals the end of coding work at 6:30. This has been my routine the last 3 weeks. On Saturdays, I don’t have the second alarm, though I have other responsibilities later in the morning.

Yes, I do this six days a week. I even did it on a day off. Can I keep this up? I don’t see why not. I do try to get some work done after work, but I also keep that time available for chores and spending time with my wife. This still leaves some time to work most nights, but that’s when MeetUps happen, or networking events.

It’s hard to find the time to get everything I want done. I know I’m not alone in trying to squeeze more time from each day. This routine is me trying to find more hours in the day to work towards my goals, but still able to have some sort of normalized life. I don’t want to me monkish all day, as it’s important to me to still be available to those around me.

Yesterday, though, I had a hard time with transitioning from coding to getting ready for work. My code had problems, and I couldn’t find the cause. As alarms went off to remind me it was time to transition, I ignored in hopes of not leaving the code with syntax errors. I eventually had to accept defeat for the moment and move on. Thankfully, that alarm will go off tomorrow at 5am. 

Even accepting temporary defeat was hard.

Learning how to code is like riding a bike…

Seeing code in action. I’m visual, I need to see it, rather than just read about it. That’s how I learned HTML.

View Page Source was my first step into coding in any sort. It was like a secret code. I built a site on HTML 3, stealing ideas from sites. It felt like a collage to me: find something I liked, view page source, copy + paste code, then edit for my purpose. As a ignorant, isolate kid newly initiated to the Internet, I didn’t credit the way I should. The inspirations have been lost to time. I can find my site on the Wayback Machine*, and see I credited a few, but most of that code was stolen.

That first real site was built using AOL’s member site CMS. It was like using Front Page, but there was a way to view the tagging. This is where I did most of my site building.

Years later, when I enrolled in a Web Design course at Moore College of Art and Design, the first class was like visiting an old friend and seeing how they’ve changed over time. We both grew up a bit.

This experience in class was a fleeting thought back then. I’ve returned to this thought as I pondered the notion of finding my bike riding experience I mentioned in an earlier post.

Over the last couple days I’ve been returning to this practice more and more. I used it when looking for a bike-trying to barter my rudimentary skills for a commuter bike. (The place wouldn’t budge on anything that I tried to counter with. You would think they would be a little more flexible when trying to sell bikes in February.) I’ve also used this as I start thinking about building an address app for my work. Additionally, when I’ve just happen across a site I like, I’ve viewed the source just to get more experience looking at code.

*There’s no way I’m sharing this old site. Not because I’m ashamed of the borrowed code, but I’m embarrassed by the content. As in, I’d be willing to burn the internet down to have it not see the light of day…

Intro to JavaScript

It’s been about a week since I last posted.

I left last week’s meet up with the idea that is dive into UX. I have knowledge to draw on for this. I can find my way through HTML, have a basic understanding of CSS, and know my way around the W3 Schools site to find the answers to what I don’t know or forget. I knew I could build on this. 

I don’t know JavaScript, but I knew of JavaScript. I started looking into APIs, and when realizing JSON is built on JavaScript, I took a step into learning this. I met someone at the MeetUp that suggested I start learning with Khan Academy for other languages, so I went there to begin JavaScript. 

I’ve listened to an hour or so of Lynda.com Essential JavaScript, and went through a small amount of CodeAcademy’s JavaScript tutorials. 

When I started with Khan Academy, I felt like I was picking it up faster than I expected. It started with drawing shapes and placement of the shapes. Then I got them to move! I was really enjoying this. 

Then I had an idea. I started altering the code to create a Valentine for my wife. It would be corny but sweet, something to show what I had learned over the week. It would be nice to produce something tangible as evidence of the work I put in over the week. 

I built it on Khan Academy, had it working correctly and all. I copied and pasted it into Dreamweaver as a .js file. Then I created an HTML document to display the JavaScript. I’ve done this before: Lightbox is built on js, and I’ve used it before. A simple “<script SRC=””>” tag and I’d be in business. 

But then I tested it. In a couple browsers. I used the <noscript> tag to make sure I knew if my browser was causing any problems. But nothing. Nothing showed in the browser-any browser I tried. 

I double checked my i’s were dotted, quotations in correct spots, tags closed, everything. Nothing seemed to work. I spent at least two hours just checking my code. Finally, I did what anyone would do. I google searched “My khan academy code won’t work in JavaScript.”

I got a couple hits. Basically, the Khan Academy JavaScript syntax is different than actual JavaScript that browsers recognize. I was presented two options:go through the code and verify that it was valid JavaScript code, or use another js document to make the code work. Why wouldn’t I use the conversion code, right? After another hour or so, I had eventually given up copying this Khan code out. 

I really enjoyed the interface of Khan Academy, and I really liked how the content was presented. I really wanted to continue. I felt like I was progressing a lot on there, but when I couldn’t simply copy and paste the projects I was making there, I couldn’t go on. Maybe I’m missing something, but why have their own syntax? Why change mousePressed to mouseIsPressed? 

I went back to CodeAcademy, at least for the time being. I hope Winston understands.