A Well Deserved Break

 With the holidays coming up, I've decided to take a break from learning. Yes, I could make the time for whatever was important to me, but I'd rather not stress myself out or overload myself. We as humans need to know when to step back from something for our mental health. That time is now for me. 

Resources Galore

I have found #python Tiktok. If you've ever been on Tiktok, you know the drill. To all those who roll their eyes at the mere mention of the app and wish it would die, I'm here to inform you that this app is more than teenage girls twirking for likes and comments. 

Most videos are fifteen seconds long, but some can be as long as sixty seconds. There is a large variety of subjects that you can stick to if you use the discover feature. I just happened upon one person's page that used the hashtag, and down the rabbit hole I went. You would be amazed at the stuff you can learn in short videos. The biggest thing I got from the videos was actually seeing how what I'm learning can be used in different ways. Everyone has their own ideas of how to come to a solution, and there is often times more than one way to 'skin a cat' (as the older generations would say). 

It was interesting seeing the process of how programmers put their ideas into action. You can get all kinds of code samples to look out, but watching a program be created is another experience altogether. 

Steady As It Goes

I've made it halfway through Chapter 4 this last week. The content on these webpages is easy to follow and well organized with opportunities at the end of each chapter for you to use what you've learned. I would suggest this series of webpages to anyone starting out as it assumes you have no prior coding knowledge. 

I admit that I've not been committing as much time to learning to code as I could (life and other extracurricular activities get in the way).

I'd still like to learn the Java and C languages in the future, but I'm going to focus solely on this until I'm finished with next semester. I'm looking at over two years before I finish my degree, and I hope to have either an app, game, or program created by then. Either would be great practice for what I'm learning. 

Goldrush!

I know I said I would only be updating once a week, but this information begged to be passed along. As I mentioned in my last post, I will be learning Python at school next semester. I did a little digging to get ahead of the game and found the following website:

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/#toc

If you are anything like me and haven't been coding since you were five, then this tutorial is for you. It is far easier to follow and understand than Head First Java. The whole Python language is much more simple than Java even. 

Just beware the indents! 

Yesterday my program kept throwing out an error message, and it turned out that I only forgot to leave out an indent. 

I'm so excited I've found this. 

Holy Dungeon Batman!

My journey of learning programming reminds me a lot of playing Skyrim for the first time. 

I loaded up the game, customized my character, was led through the first quest, and then I was released into the wilds with a general direction of what I needed to do. Of course, the first thing I did was run off into the woods and start picking up random things that I came across. I soon found myself in a dungeon that I was far too unprepared and under-equipped for. After taking days to fight through to the end (I learned quickly to save before advancing to the next room), I finally received my prize without a clue of what to do with it. 

I was determined not to give up, so off I went again into the wilds. It wasn't until about two weeks later that I realized following the story line would have saved me a lot of pain and suffering. Now I easily navigate the world of Skyrim and have even taken on the ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE world of Elder Scrolls Online. 

I hope that one day I'll be able to do the same in the coding/programming community. 

My train wreck:

I received my class assignments for the Spring semester, and it seems they are throwing me head first into infrastructure and data management. I'm hoping that these classes aren't as scary as they sound. I don't even know what these things mean or what context to take them in. One of the classes also has a Python book I'm supposed to buy. These are going to have to be problems for another day. I have two months before I'll have to delve into this.