Hi. So, I’ve finished:
I don’t really know how much of the information I’ve retained. Should I continue on with the next lesson (Responsive Web Design Principals) or should I try to apply what I’ve learned so far to a project?
Thank you!!
I would learn responsive design at least.
Then if your project is a simple static page you’re in good shape to start. If you have a more dynamic app in mind then I would learn node.js first so that you can have user accounts, or whatever else.
If you’re excited to start a project though just do what you want, see how far you can get, its good practice and its fun.
Thanks for the response!
I’m a newbie at all this and I don’t really have a project in mind. I just hear that applying what you learn is the best way to learn. Any suggestions on how to do that? I’ll follow your instruction and finish responsive design, though, before moving on to a “project”.
Thanks again.
if you want to start, you should be able to complete at least the first of the five projects in the certificate, and if I remember correctly also the second. The others require some use of responsive techniques (media queries, flex, grid)
don’t be afraid to use the Read-Search-Ask method and google stuff or go back to the challenges if you don’t remember stuff
Thanks for your response. I just realized that the last course in the curriculum are challenges to complete. I didn’t see that before.
So, if I go ahead and work on the challenges, is that something that I can record somewhere to show others that I’ve completed them?
Thanks again for your insight.
Sure. You can start a personal blog, or a dev.to account or a twitter and talk about your stuff. E.g. I did a 25 part series on Node, Express and PostgreSQL last year and a 30 part series on some code challenges this year on dev.to and my personal blog.
This improved my explanation and writing skills a lot.
Also some recruiters messaged me about my blog, e.g.:
if you mean the projects, you will have to save your progress somewhere, the suggestion is CodePen but you can do that anywhere that have a similar functionality. And then share your completed projects with whoever you want
Thanks, Michael.
May I ask why you used dev.to vs Github?
Thanks again!
Thank you. I appreciate the help.
Can you elaborate on this?
My code is on Github and my blog posts are on my personal blog and on dev.to.
Hi Mike. I’m sooo new to all this so I may be asking irrelevant or dumb questions. I’ve completed this so far on free code camp:
I just started Responsive Web Design Principles today. I’m literally asking what should be my next step? Should I continue to complete the Responsive Web Design Certification and Projects prior to doing anything else? WWYD? I’m coming from absolutely zero background and am trying to self-learn. Feel a bit lost and looking for some guidance. Thank you!
Great work!
I think it’s a good idea to follow the curriculum:
The projects are a good milestone.
You will need some time for this.
My approach would be like this:
I think you are employable after finishing all the 15 projects of:
Not as a fullstack engineer with Google or Apple,
but as a valuable developer for the frontend or as a freelancer for small companies (additional soft skills needed).
So this is my benchmark:
Not my benchmarks:
Hi Mike! Thanks for the reply! Really appreciate it! That sounds like a great plan and I intend on doing what you’re suggesting.
I haven’t been doing the daily summary but I’ll get to it. I’ll take a look at other examples out there and try to emulate them. Thank you.
So, I just finished the first project Responsive Web Design Projects - Build a Tribute Page:
https://cdpn.io/MacroFrito/debug/GRZxzQK/VJkxxOBvxVDk
A few things that concern me:
Sorry for all the hand-holding but I’d really like to feel as comfortable as possible with each step before moving to the next and I def don’t feel comfortable at this point.
TYVM for all your help and feedback!!
I look forward to hearing back.
Your link doesn’t work as expected,
here is the correct one: https://codepen.io/MacroFrito/pen/GRZxzQK
At the bottom of the tribute page project description is a link to the tribute page example (in the red box):
When you visit it, you can see a URL at the top of the HTML box (blue box):
This is exactly the URL as in the first image (also blue box).
To use it, it is in a script tag.
You can use this script in each of your projects,
you just have to choose the project you want to test (purple box in the image above).
You can build a small portfolio and put it there!
Yeah, that’s totally normal.
I think it’s a good idea to build each user story one by one by dissecting it into smaller parts.
For example:
User Story #1: My tribute page should have an element with a corresponding
id="main", which contains all other elements.
My tribute page: I have to fork the FCC example or create a new pen
should have an element: maybe a div or a main element makes sense
with a corresponding id="main": when using a div, I can do it like this:
<div id="main"></div>
which contains all other elements: my other elements have to live inside the div:<div id="main">
other element 1
other element 2
</div>
The more experienced you become, the more of these tiny steps you can do in a bigger step.
I think everyone once was a beginner. 
Looking forward to seeing your next steps!
Thanks again, Mike. I’ll keep you posted!
I would definitely do some projects first. No javascript, no functionality, just html/css (or any css library that you want to use instead). Just go into the wild and try to do various things. If you are out of ideas you can always try to look for templates and try to replicate them. Struggle, get stuck, suffer, that’s how you improve. You’ll start enjoying it way more once you realize you are getting better and can create something nice.
I also suggest having a perfectionistic approach, dont run away because you cant do something, try to find a solution, chance is, you will have to do in the future eventually. So you cant really run from it forever. (Saying this as someone who did that same mistake 
)
Hey Mike,
Hope all is well. So I went back and did the first project and followed your instructions. They were super helpful. To my delight I was able to complete the first project with all 10 tests passing without copying or pasting any previous code. Here it is:
Aesthetically, it’s nothing too pleasing but my goal was to just get all 10 tests to pass, which I did. Please let me know your thoughts. Do you think I should keep working on it or would you say it’s good to go?
I’m going to start working on the 2nd project anyway but would love to hear your feedback.
Again, thanks for everything.
Hi,
Thanks for your response. I truly appreciate it. I’m about to start the 2nd project under Responsive Web Design. Here’s my result from the 1st project:
Feel free to give me any feedback. By the way,
Can you elaborate a bit more on this? How do I accomplish that?
Thank you!
Hi Mike.
Hope you had a nice weekend. Here’s my survey page (project #2):
One question I have, though, is if I’m copying code from google searches or the example provided and just customizing it to my needs, does that count as coding (which I did to complete both projects, thus far)? If I’m doing that, does that mean that I really know the material or am I just cheating my way through? What’s your opinion on that?
would you be able to do the project again without that much research and getting code from other sources? (only allowed devdocs.io ) and without looking at your own code of the already existing project either
if yes, then you are also learning from those snippets you take. If you can’t, then you are doing yourself a disservice.