When I do my own projects, I mostly ask myself “Would I like to use this site?”.
Regarding your site, I would probably read it, maybe I would go to Wikipedia directly, because the user interface is similar (white background, black font color).
I think it’s always a good idea to fork your own old stuff and rework the forks to see the differences and your progress.
I think "does that count as coding?" is not the best question. I think nobody cares about "I am a coder", if you are not able to solve problems/create products with your skills. It’s mostly an ego thing.
I think better questions are:
Am I able to build this from scratch without (a lot of) help?
Do I feel more able to build stuff after copying this code?
I think the technical implementation is not the hardest part of engineering. It’s a lot about the psychological stuff. Being resilient to frustration. Being able to cope with the stress around it.
If recently wrote a post about concepts vs. implementation regarding CSS, but I think it’s nearly the same with all the engineering.
When you copy code, you copy the implementation details. You mostly don’t read up on the What & Why. Sometimes fixing the How is urgent and necessary. But to learn a craft, I think it’s more about learning the What & Why.
Thanks a ton for your response, Mike. Very helpful.
I think it’s always a good idea to fork your own old stuff and rework the forks to see the differences and your progress.
Can you explain this in layman’s terms? I’m still not completely clear on what the term “forking” is. Is it taking an original and then customizing to your own needs? Or further improve on a previous version? Is that “forking”?
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. (wikipedia)
basically its like creating a paralel copy… that you can change how you want, but the original remain the same
