Just started and wondering if I'm going to fast

Hey I just started today without any knowledge on programming or whatsoever…
I planned on just having a look around on how I could get started in learning to program but suddenly I already finished the first 2 big chapters (both with a time estimate of 5hours)

Do you think I’m going through it to fast or are the time estimates extremely generous?

I can’t say I would remember how to recreate that cat photo app if I was given a blank page but if I’m guided along the different steps I know what to do and I understand everything. I guess you will start to remember all the different steps and options as you progress through the course and use everything over and over again?

There was only one thing I didn’t understand completely. when they explained you to use bootstrap they told you they had already implemented a specific link in the background, I couldn find it back in my HTML… Is this a link we would have to remember by heart or normally if you work on a code this will by default already be implemented or do you just have to look it up or whatever? :smiley:

Don’t worry about the speed you progress at to begin with. The early challenges are really just an introduction to very common HTML and JavaScript syntax.

You’ll really start to learn things when you start making the projects that come later and need to look up all sorts of things that have only been touched on briefly in the curriculum.

The bootstrap link you are talking about would normally be added in the <head> section of your HTML document, but you won’t need to memorise it. Whenever I use it (or jquery) I just Google ‘bootstrap cdn link’ and grab the snippet. (CDN is ‘content delivery network’ - it’s just a host for commonly used files).

Congratulations on your progress so far!

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Hello @Stoffel-KT!

I’m also curious about the bootstrap link (I’m very new to web dev myself) haha but for what its worth:

I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to recreate, from scratch, the cat photo app… AT FIRST. I think its awesome that you’re so far along already :smiley:, esp w/out any knowledge of programming. I’ve found that, for me, programming is about understanding/comprehending the basic structures of any given language and being able to implement those structures to perform the task I need.

Two things I’ve taken away so far:

1.) As with any skill, repetition is huge. If you feel you’re going too quickly on a challenge, run through it again. Just make sure you understand the basics of what your trying to accomplish in that challenge. With repetition comes habit. In episode 63 of the CodeNewbie podcast (which is awesome btw, I highly recommend it), @QuincyLarson (founder of FreeCodeCamp) mentions John Resig (creator of the jQuery JavaScript library), and how he made it his goal to Write Code Everyday.

2.) Knowing where/how to find information. Even if you were asked to recreate the cat photo app, you could always go back to the challenges/google/stackoverflow and grab the needed information. Since you’ve already completed so many of the challenges, you know where to find each piece of the puzzle to recreate the app.

Hope this helps :slight_smile: and congrats on the progress you’ve made so far!!

-Derek

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lol, once you can understand the concept, you can’t be going to fast. I started two weeks ago and just have 2 of the advance algorithm left to complete.

I have some experience in PHP and wordpress plugin development where I learned some jQuery and lil javascript along the way. One language can help in the next. From PHP, i learned the beauty of loops and arrays so those are easy for me to work with because of prior experience.

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Thx for the info and the support on my progress guys.

I now have to start with the build a tribute page which I think will take a bit longer so I’m not going to start that. I already was able to provide some help in the chatroom without having to look back so I think I do understand the basic idea of what I’ve seen so far.

@JacksonBates: I already found out indeed that in what I have to start now I just had to tick a box to include bootstrap so that’s easy indeed :slight_smile:

@dhockman: I think I will definitely take your advice to go back a few challenges once in a while just to keep on practicing the basics and I will have a look at that podcast you suggested as well… thx!

Take care guys!

(since I was only allowed to reply to two people at a time)

@JenryOllivierre: wow, you seem to be having a more than decent pace as well?! Have you been working on it every day? How many hours a day?

Take care!

Coding is my passion, spend many hours ah day learning it, practically all my spare devoted to this. May watch a lil Netflix now and again to ease the brain. At this time, i’m a freelance accountant so I can dedicate time whenever I feel like to coding, which i’ve done a lot of for the past two weeks lol. Almost full days. I Only sleep about 6 hours a day so even if I don’t get in any coding during the day time, I usually do at nights. From this week coming i Have to go back into the accounting zone and less FCC.

Hi, and welcome!

I feel it’s rather easy to fly through first two chapters, and also a matter of choice. You can always go back and review some topic, if u need it, so I don’t think you should be worried!
(The links provided for bootstrap, can be copy-pasted from there, no need to learn it.)
The main thing is to stick to coding :smiley: …forever :smiling_imp:

…you know, just don’t burn out. Other than that, practice will fix it all.

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I’m in agreement with the others. I wouldn’t worry about your pace. I have some programming experience myself and am already on the first project after a couple of hours going through the intro lessons.

Something that’s been helping me is going on to the W3 Schools site for HTML/CSS reference. The site is fantastic and for certain things, I feel like it’s nice to have something explained differently to me. For what it’s worth I feel like everything is sticking better too since I started the first project.

I hope that gives you a bit of encouragement!

I just started too, and flew through the first few chapters. Then when I got to the Tribute project and then the portfolio I felt like I didn’t know enough. The examples used are definitely beyond what has been taught to this point. But as long as it functions correctly, I think it makes sense to update later, as skills increase.