Nice to be back in vsCode
I've been spending the last several weeks working hard on my JavaScript skills, and I've come a long way. However, the coursework I've been taking has not been project-based in the least. There have been some problem sets that work outside of a text editor, but that's about it. Sometimes, I would start to wonder how these things actually relate to real-world development. I can definitely see how you would use these concepts in developing sites, but the material got so abstract at times, I would lose sight of the underlying goal of building websites. React quickly ties that back in, as do most frameworks, I'm sure. JavaScript is obviously used heavily in React, and while you don't have to be an expert in JavaScript to be able to work with React, it certainly helps to have a firm grasp of the subject matter.
After a long break from React courses, meaning about a month, I dove back in to Brian Holt's "Complete Intro to React" on Frontend Masters. This course's basis was building a fairly simple app for adopting pets using both class-based components and hooks. I have taken a few courses in the past that have introduced hooks, but never gone into much detail with them, so it was really nice to go a little deeper with them in this course. Since the last time I took a React course, my understanding of the code itself has grown immensely. I now understand why a lot of things are structured in the way they are, and I kept making connections to the coursework of the last few weeks I've done on JavaScript. Things are so much clearer now that I have a better understanding of JavaScript, but there were still some concepts I was left scratching my head about. Brian's style is definitely different than Will Sentance's; he doesn't spend as much time dissecting the code as Will does, but if he had, the course would have been 20 hours long instead of 5 and a half. Regardless, I gained a lot from this course and am excited to start "Intermediate React" next, which builds on this same project with some more advanced concepts.
Yesterday, I had an awesome pair programming session with a guy I met on Twitter, Matt Bear. I think it's so cool that I could connect with someone in Australia and do something like this with ease; technology has come a long way. In this session, we shared screens and took turns navigating and driving on a series of exercises out of Will Sentance's "Hard Parts: Functional JS Foundations" course. This was incredibly helpful for both of us to practice our technical communication. Having to tell the driver what you want them to do without explicitly telling them exactly what to write is a skill that is not only useful in technical interviews, but would be used every day on the job if you work with a team. I was especially proud of myself for navigating through one of the more difficult problems, for me at least. It was a great feeling to be able to get that function to pass when we ran the tests. Matt is definitely more advanced than me when it comes to JavaScript, but he was really patient with me. There were several points where I immediately learned something from what he was doing. At the end of the session, we both agreed this should be a weekly occurrence, and set up a time to meet next week and every week thereafter. I think this is some of the most valuable time I've spent so far in my journey.
Until tomorrow!
