The importance of community and helping other developers cannot be emphasized enough. There is so much to be gained by spending time with other developers, sharing each other’s challenges, and assisting where applicable and requested.
It has been an exciting couple of weeks since my last 100 Days of Code checkin. During that time I completed the last two projects in my front-end certification: a Tic Tac Toe game and a Simon Game. I wrote about some of my process in those posts and don’t want to repeat myself too much, but what I wanted to capture here was my reflections on the process of approaching 100 days of coding. I find myself sticking with it easier than I expected, and I think the two greatest factors have been community and habit forming.
There are hundreds of developers if not thousands who are all participating in the 100 Days of Code challenge, and many have formed a community on Twitter around the #100DaysOfCode hashtag. Those who are engaged on Twitter post updates about what they worked on that day, their struggles, and triumphs. Having a community of people all actively engaged in a similar process to you fosters a sense of connection and camaraderie. It gives developers who may often work in isolation a sense of connection and belonging to something larger. The journey of continuing to move forward becomes more exciting when others are moving ahead with you. Even further, this community space fosters a sense of shared learning wherein more experienced developers can encourage beginners. Just as importantly, those who are further ahead and perhaps found themselves stuck on the same issue are able to help the newer developers along. In contrast, beginners and those in the midst of learning may be able to connect with the more experienced devs and remind them why they got into coding to begin with. The importance of community and helping other developers cannot be emphasized enough. There is so much to be gained by spending time with other developers, sharing each other’s challenges, and assisting where applicable and requested.
I found that the task of doing at least one hour of coding for 100 consecutive days truly helped in terms of cementing the knowledge gained through various educational channels. I still find myself perplexed at times when coding, but I am now able to step back and take a breath. I’m finding more and more that using a debugger and console.log()-ing things out along the way help with my mental model of what I believe the code is doing and what it is actually doing. I’m growing much more comfortable with the approaches I can take to finding the solution to a problem. I feel better equipped to acknowledge when it’s been a while and I may need to step away or ask for assistance. In particular, asking questions on Stackoverflow in a clear manner has become critical to advancing when I don’t have a more senior developer to work with on the problem.
I find that it’s relatively easy to stick with coding over the days. This comes back to the importance of community, but also as a matter of habit formation. My fiancee, a counselor who is often asking questions about habit formation with clients, keeps telling me that habit formation (adding or replacing habits) has to be both about trying to add in something while also removing other things. If we don’t take time to evaluate what is being replaced by what we’re adding, we can quickly sabotage ourselves. In the same way, the time I use for coding is time I can’t be using for other things. Looking for time I’m already spending on unnecessary activities and replacing it has worked well for me. Specifically checking social media, news sites, and a couple of blogs becomes compulsive and mindless. I’ve replaced these with coding time which has been much more beneficial.
I look forward to seeing what happens over the next several weeks as I will be starting a code school. The whole program takes 5 months, and I’m continuing with 100 Days of Code throughout. I’m simultaneously getting into more difficult topics and also spending more time coding. The combination of these might end up consuming a lot of content here, but also may create a valuable resource for others who might be considering similar options as I am. If you’ve been on the cusp about participating in the 100 Days of Code challenge, I would strongly encourage you to take the plunge. You can find details on the challenge here or by searching the #100DaysOfCode hashtag on Twitter.