Life Updates and '#100DaysOfCode'

Hi, everyone! It has been a minute since I have posted, but I wanted to do a little update on what I have been up to! Through mid to end of 2018 I was quite busy welcoming lots of changes in my life and navigating unforeseen swerves. Most notably, I moved from Southern California to the Midwest (right on time for the Polar Vortex- yay!) and I also started a new job. The transition was surprisingly smooth and while it is freezing (I have not one, but TWO space heaters on my desk at work), I am embracing and enjoying the novelty of seasons.

Another new thing as of late is that I have committed to the #100DaysOfCode challenge. If you are unfamiliar with the challenge, the two main rules are to 1) commit to 1 hour of coding a day and 2) to post your progress with the #100DaysOfCode hashtag on twitter. You can read more about it here if you're curious! My day one of the challenge was January 18th, so I am almost a quarter way through the challenge at this point and have been posting my progress on my twitter account @janessatran_ I wanted to make an update about some of the things I've created so far and to define my intentions and goals for this challenge, as I hope to share my progress as I go through the challenege and ultimately do a recap on this blog.

Goals and Intentions

My main intention for doing the #100DaysOfCode challenge is to have fun, make cool/pretty things, and to learn something. Honestly, I sought out this challenege primarily because I realized that I really miss programming. And I really like programming because I really like making things. So... here I am! If I learn something new and have fun, I will have considered this a succesful challenge. So far, so good.

January Progress

As part of the #100DaysOfCode challenge, I decided to do [The Odin Project](https://www.theodinproject.com/). The Odin Project is a free open source coding curriculum that can be taken entirely online. I am currently working through the Web Development 101 course, which teaches you the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ruby on Rails for a dip into the full stack of web development. My experience with taking this online course so far has been great! I like that the resources are organized into one place, the path is set up such that I don't have to concern myself with where to start and where to go next, and the community has been really welcoming and helpful! Moreover, since it is fully online you can go at a pace that you are comfortable with. This is really awesome for me, since most of my coding is done after work at night and some nights I have more time / energy than others. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a free online course for web dev!

Additionally, I decided to start with the Odin Project because I'm hoping that the skills I build up through this course also help me learn d3.js. Being able to build informative, interactive data visualizations with open-source code.. what a dream :)

Anywho, on to the good stuff (things I've made). Here are some of the things I've been able to make so far with what I"m learning:

• a tic-tac-toe game
• an etch-a-sketch pad
• a calculator

They are all fairly simple tools on simple static web pages, but I learned a lot building these from scratch! Of course, I learned a lot about the DOM and HTML/CSS/JavaScript, but more importantly, these projects made me more aware of the importance of test-driven-development (goodbye print statement testing!) as well as web accessibility. As I continue to work on projects and develop my skills, I definitely look forward to learning more about how to create wide accessiblity for all types of users. I'm excited to learn more and look forward to sharing it with you all here, too!

Here is a sketch of a happy dog I made with my etch-a-sketch pad.