Category Archives

13 Articles
Code/Uncategorized

Adding pages to First Website

Posted by Danial on

It’s been a rough week at work and spent the past few days focused at my day job and resting when at home. Without a system to ensure that I do something every day, I racked up a chain of 5 zero days between 26/8 to 31/8.

I decided to set up a system to structure my days so that I will definitely put in at least a one-liner every day regardless of the situation. On top of that, the system, will also make it more sustainable for me to maintain no zero days by determining the extent of work I should put in every day depending on my fatigue, motivation and schedule.

[1] Tracking: A one line code added to First Website (can be content, tags, add or modifications etc.) and a corresponding one line progress log on blog that also updates ‘Days since last Zero Day’ tracker. Should take 2-3 minute tops and will guarantee no zero days.

[2] Implementation Intentions: If/Then conditionals to plan day-to-day schedule that will determine how extensive the progress should be. The conditionals were designed after considering my irregular shift schedule. Basically: If (tomorrow) == >10.45am shift OR Off day; Then log an additional coding/learning session + If (today) == OFF day; Then log an additional coding/learning session. Note that this is in addition to the daily one line code + progress log at the start of each day.

[3] Coping plans: These are plans (also in the form of an If/Then conditional) to prepare for specific circumstances where an additional coding/learning session cannot be logged. Basically: If EOW / Off day == bad day / late OR close to bedtime / busy errand day; Then write one line code + one line progress log. There are 2 reasons for the additional one line code + one line progress log in addition to the one already planned at the start of the day namely: (a) A bad day might start from point of waking up so this coping plan acts as a failsafe & (b) starting and ending the day with the one line code + one line progress log ritual reinforces the No Zero Days habit and increases the odds that the next day will be a No Zero Day; in effect creating a chain effect that should theoretically be hard to break.

Days since last Zero Day: 1 (31/8/20)

Code/Uncategorized

HTML Forms

Posted by Danial on

Forms are a ubiquitous component of websites. Be it to create a funnel and capture leads, survey or questionnaire, or just simply as a means for site visitors to contact the owner, forms provide a simple and effective way to collate data from visitors for a variety of reasons.

Today’s lesson went into the basics of creating forms on a website: creating text fields, checkboxes and options to be selected when filling out a form.

https://firstwebsite.danialfaizsal.repl.co/

[Days since last Zero Day: 1 (24-08-2020)]

Code/Productivity

No Zero Days [Days since last zero day: 1]

Posted by Danial on

My last post was in 2016 (it’s been that long!). A lot has changed in the past 4 years, and now I’ve dived headfirst into the tech world. I won’t go into detail on what has happened so far, suffice to say, I’m now fully invested in a career revolving around tech, and am also self learning web development in my free time.

Which brings me to where I am now. After being interested in data science for the longest time, I finally managed to complete my basic Python learning (courtesy of Python Crash Course) when a semi-lockdown was in place where I’m located (March – June 2020). While it felt empowering to be able to code in Python and build random cool programs, I soon realized the limitations of Python. Python was great to build toy projects, and was powerful for data projects, but limiting when it came to the ideas I had i.e. building a personal website, creating a hobby site where I can build tools for Pokémon trading card game competitive play etc. HTML/CSS was the first order of building things, executing and implementing it for the world, and JavaScript very close behind to provide powerful performance to those things.

And thus came my pivot to learning web development in late-April/early-May. I completed the HTML/CSS curriculum on freeCodeCamp and had only 2 projects to go (technical documentation and personal web pages) before I could officially earn the Responsive Web Design Certification, but I then fell by the wayside and stopped completely the last 2 months.

I had started a 100 days of Code and was restarting so many times. I dreaded having to log in some work or learning every day, assuming that I had to put in a substantial piece of work for the day to count. And then updating it on Twitter and GitHub.

This time round, I’m taking a simple approach.

Show up every day.

Just type out a line of code or sentence.

Make sure every day has something in it that furthers learning, even if just one minute.

No zero days.

I am now following Andrei Neagoie’s Zero to Mastery Complete web development course, and validating my learning by building out a website as I follow his lessons. You can follow my learning journey here at https://firstwebsite.danialfaizsal.repl.co/ where I progressively develop the website as I learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Days since last zero day: 1 (22-08-2020).