First official JavaScript day! Today was all about diving right into JavaScript syntax. While I did have exposure to JavaScript through self-study before the program started, I only retained about 60% of it since it’s been all Ruby and Ruby on Rails for the last 5 weeks. We revisited a lot of old toy problems that we saw in Ruby, like recursive problems, or monkey-patching our own #each methods for the Array class. It was really fun to go back to these problems and really see how we could take something we already knew how to do, and apply new concepts and a new language to them, and still be able to get the same result. It really serves to reinforce everything I’ve heard about programming. Your first language is the hardest, because not only do you need to learn the syntax, but you also need to learn basic software engineering concepts as well (i.e, how to approach problems, design patterns, etc). But as soon as you have those concepts down, to take a new language’s syntax and apply them to those concepts is a relatively short leap.

We also started a very brief introduction to CSS, which is pretty cool. Not a lot of time is being spent on CSS and HTML individually. Instead, it’s being integrated with our Ruby and JavaScript curriculum so that we can learn them at the same time as learning the primary languages, which is cool. I think HTML and CSS are both easy enough to learn briefly on the side, rather than to have dedicated days for them.

On an off-topic, and by topic, I mean coding, note, yesterday was also the first day that I got to do a full round trip of biking to school and back. It’s been lame the last couple weeks having my bike broken, and all the rain, there’s been rarely an opportunity to bike. That said, I haven’t been consistent with my efforts to achieve my physical transformation because the lack of sleep is really starting to become a problem. I’ve still been eating well 90% of the time, and it’s all thanks to my girlfriend who helps me meal prep while I’m at school. But it’s been pouring the last couple weeks as I said before, and gym access by foot’s a major drag, as is biking, which was supposed to be my supplemental cardio in the morning and at night. I was thinking I’d have time once JavaScript curriculum starts, since Assessment 4 was supposed to be the hardest assessment, but the absolute volume of homework, readings and videos each night has risen from an average of 2-3 hours, to about 3-5. I’m actually starting to struggle to find enough hours in the day to get everything done, and to be frank, I’m only completing about 70% of the recommended work each day. There’s just not enough hours.

I think that’s it for today guys! Back to trying to finish last night’s homework and readings. Talk to you guys tomorrow!