Thanks for the tip. Didn't realize I could do that haha. Issue I'm also running into is overthinking and typing out a million lines of code when in reality the solution is usually fairly simple.
Good rule of thumb is that if something is evaluated and you are returning a boolean, you can most likely just directly return the statement. It will also help you (eventually) grasp the (non-strict) typing of JavaScript better.
Reading the block aloud might help too. The "million lines of code" problem is normal, but there's only way to get better with that is (rather ironically) writing and evaluating more code and learning in general. For (a simple example) example, if you are filtering an array with a for-loop, think to yourself "is there a better way to do this" and most likely there is.
Good rule of thumb is that if something is evaluated and you are returning a boolean, you can most likely just directly return the statement. It will also help you (eventually) grasp the (non-strict) typing of JavaScript better.
Reading the block aloud might help too. The "million lines of code" problem is normal, but there's only way to get better with that is (rather ironically) writing and evaluating more code and learning in general. For (a simple example) example, if you are filtering an array with a for-loop, think to yourself "is there a better way to do this" and most likely there is.
Step 1: Write code.
Step 2: Get code working. / Alternative: Joy out like a kid if code works first time!
Step 3: Let some time pass.
Step 4: Review code.
Step 5: Think "What the heck was i thinking?" while reviewing.
Step 6: Optimize.
We have all been there. My friends/colleagues who are in "traditional" software development have been there.
CSS is as much of a mess now as it is when I first studied it a bit years ago.
Absolute positioning is the greatest though. I stopped fiddling around with [display: table-cells] and [floats] once I realized I could tells thing to be exactly where I want them to be forever.
Good rule of thumb is that if something is evaluated and you are returning a boolean, you can most likely just directly return the statement. It will also help you (eventually) grasp the (non-strict) typing of JavaScript better.
Reading the block aloud might help too. The "million lines of code" problem is normal, but there's only way to get better with that is (rather ironically) writing and evaluating more code and learning in general. For (a simple example) example, if you are filtering an array with a for-loop, think to yourself "is there a better way to do this" and most likely there is.
Step 1: Write code.
Step 2: Get code working. / Alternative: Joy out like a kid if code works first time!
Step 3: Let some time pass.
Step 4: Review code.
Step 5: Think "What the heck was i thinking?" while reviewing.
Step 6: Optimize.
We have all been there. My friends/colleagues who are in "traditional" software development have been there.
My process is usually stare at the screen forever wondering how to get started then typing out code that I know won't work but I'll try anyway. Then that leads to something I thought was on the right track but still doesn't work. Then I find the solution and go what the heck was I thinking?!.
Also despite these online resources making me feel stupid, it's nice when I can actually get things right. Like I'm taking a free front end class at a hackerspace and it's been so nice actually understanding what's happening. The hw assignments that have been given thus far are fairly easy and I can figure them out without too much trouble. That and there's people more confused than I am since some of the stuff I found trivial was impossible for classmates that are still learning.
Any good online guides to magento? I have a pretty basic understanding of how services like that work, but aren't that knowledgeable of it. I have an advance grasp on html and CSS, intermediate with javascript and a barely intermediate grasp on php if that helps. Got to help my company redo some of their site which is based on magento.
Thanks for advice. Also lol I always think of a for loop when filtering through an array.
My process is usually stare at the screen forever wondering how to get started then typing out code that I know won't work but I'll try anyway. Then that leads to something I thought was on the right track but still doesn't work. Then I find the solution and go what the heck was I thinking?!.
Also despite these online resources making me feel stupid, it's nice when I can actually get things right. Like I'm taking a free class at a hackerspace and it's been so nice actually understanding what's happening. The hw assignments that have been given thus are fairly easy and I can figure them out without too much trouble. That and there's people more confused than I am since some of the stuff I found trivial was impossible for classmates that are still learning.
Well, whatever your target platform is, looping through an Array might even be your only option, i'm looking at you, IE 8.
Still, it's viable most of the time, and there is always a way to make something better/more efficient/more elegant. It comes down to Time/Use/Gain/Compatibility ... and sometimes this leads to quick & dirty.
But if you can, write good, clean, extendable and efficient scripts, you're doing yourself a favor. ^^
Your steps do fall under my Step 1 and 2. Quote the image of the dog with the tie in front of a PC with the slogan "I have no idea what i'm doing". ^^
Once you get the basics of development, you can adapt those to pretty much all languages out there. Amazon wasn't developed in a day, too!
I've got a weird question for y'all SQL perfomance experts (Oracle DB).
In my frontend VS backend daily fight, today I gave a look at some backend services that needed a change and at some point I started crying for the absurd code unreadability of it all. But, oh well, that was not the curious thing.
I asked the project manager about a certain query (more like a dozen of identical queries, because that code is DRY as a tsunami) that didn't make much sense to me.
Basically, they are doing a series of LEFT JOIN and then instead of filtering with a WHERE directly on the joined tables, they do an IN.
Maybe some code would explain it better than me...
We have a "super_complicated_object" table which contains a product which is contained in a category.
In this case, we'd like to get the product details of all the products contained in a certain category (text search with the string "abcde").
Keep in mind that I halved the joins for clarity, but just imagine how unreadable are the actual queries.
This is what I would do:
Code:
SELECT
obj.id AS id,
prod.name AS name,
prod.description AS description,
cat.name AS category
FROM
super_complicated_object AS obj
LEFT JOIN
products AS prod ON prod.id = obj.product
LEFT JOIN
categories AS cat ON cat.id = obj.cat
WHERE
obj.product = prod.id AND
prod.category = cat.id AND
cat.name LIKE "%abcdef%"
Instead, this is what they're doing:
Code:
SELECT
obj.id AS id,
prod.name AS name,
prod.description AS description,
cat.name AS category
FROM
super_complicated_object AS obj
LEFT JOIN
products AS prod ON prod.id = obj.product
LEFT JOIN
categories AS cat ON cat.id = prod.cat
WHERE
obj.id IN (
SELECT
sub_obj.id
FROM
super_complicated_object AS sub_obj,
products AS sub_prod,
categories AS sub_cat
WHERE
sub_obj.product = sub_prod.id AND
sub_prod.category = sub_cat.id AND
sub_cat.name LIKE "%abcdef%"
)
The explanation behind this is that if I search directly on the joined tables, the complexity of permutations (or whatever, I'm sure you got what I mean ) grows exponentially.
Instead, they're simply searching in a smaller subset of IDs, so blazing fast, rejoice, and all that stuff.
And here is what I totally can't understand.
Ok, I guess a direct search on the joined tables could be harsh performance-wise, but aren't they doing the same, just... loading the joined tables a second time, just for fun?
Am I dumb or am I right assuming there's something fishy about their approach?
also this is when I cry for dropping out of university, because I'd totally know about these things if I had the balls to keep on studying... :'(
I've got a weird question for y'all SQL perfomance experts (Oracle DB).
In my frontend VS backend daily fight, today I gave a look at some backend services that needed a change and at some point I started crying for the absurd code unreadability of it all. But, oh well, that was not the curious thing.
I asked the project manager about a certain query (more like a dozen of identical queries, because that code is DRY as a tsunami) that didn't make much sense to me.
Basically, they are doing a series of LEFT JOIN and then instead of filtering with a WHERE directly on the joined tables, they do an IN.
Maybe some code would explain it better than me...
We have a "super_complicated_object" table which contains a product which is contained in a category.
In this case, we'd like to get the product details of all the products contained in a certain category (text search with the string "abcde").
Keep in mind that I halved the joins for clarity, but just imagine how unreadable are the actual queries.
This is what I would do:
Code:
SELECT
obj.id AS id,
prod.name AS name,
prod.description AS description,
cat.name AS category
FROM
super_complicated_object AS obj
LEFT JOIN
products AS prod ON prod.id = obj.product
LEFT JOIN
categories AS cat ON cat.id = obj.cat
WHERE
obj.product = prod.id AND
prod.category = cat.id AND
cat.name LIKE "%abcdef%"
Instead, this is what they're doing:
Code:
SELECT
obj.id AS id,
prod.name AS name,
prod.description AS description,
cat.name AS category
FROM
super_complicated_object AS obj
LEFT JOIN
products AS prod ON prod.id = obj.product
LEFT JOIN
categories AS cat ON cat.id = prod.cat
WHERE
obj.id IN (
SELECT
sub_obj.id
FROM
super_complicated_object AS sub_obj,
products AS sub_prod,
categories AS sub_cat
WHERE
sub_obj.product = sub_prod.id AND
sub_prod.category = sub_cat.id AND
sub_cat.name LIKE "%abcdef%"
)
The explanation behind this is that if I search directly on the joined tables, the complexity of permutations (or whatever, I'm sure you got what I mean ) grows exponentially.
Instead, they're simply searching in a smaller subset of IDs, so blazing fast, rejoice, and all that stuff.
And here is what I totally can't understand.
Ok, I guess a direct search on the joined tables could be harsh performance-wise, but aren't they doing the same, just... loading the joined tables a second time, just for fun?
Am I dumb or am I right assuming there's something fishy about their approach?
also this is when I cry for dropping out of university, because I'd totally know about these things if I had the balls to keep on studying... :'(
The way the database works, it doesn't just join all the tables and then start applying the where conditions. It's a lot smarter than that. It'll apply the where conditions a lot sooner (e.g. you can filter by '%abcdef%' without joining any other tables).
I would suggest that you use Oracle sqldeveloper tool to compare the two queries. You can enter the query into sqldeveloper and there's an "explain plan" option, that will show you, what the database is doing to solve the query. It will also estimate the cost of the query. As a start, that number will suffice to compare the queries.
The way the database works, it doesn't just join all the tables and then start applying the where conditions. It's a lot smarter than that. It'll apply the where conditions a lot sooner (e.g. you can filter by '%abcdef%' without joining any other tables).
I would suggest that you use Oracle sqldeveloper tool to compare the two queries. You can enter the query into sqldeveloper and there's an "explain plan" option, that will show you, what the database is doing to solve the query. It will also estimate the cost of the query. As a start, that number will suffice to compare the queries.
That's actually a great advice, thanks!
I'm using SQL Developer, but no one wasted their time teaching me how to actually use it (first time I'm around an Oracle DB, I've always worked with MySQL), and the only thing I saw when running some test queries, was the execution time.
Which btw was faster with my version than their, but the returned rows were so few that it could have easily been inaccurate (like, 0.2s versus 0.3s, or something).
Tomorrow I'm gonna try the "explain plan", hoping their approach is the best one, because I wouldn't want to go "in yo face" against my boss.
(also I just now realized there are plenty of dumb stuff in my example query, but I totally blame the fact that I had to convert their unreadable one to a readable version to my simpler approach...)
Well, whatever your target platform is, looping through an Array might even be your only option, i'm looking at you, IE 8.
Still, it's viable most of the time, and there is always a way to make something better/more efficient/more elegant. It comes down to Time/Use/Gain/Compatibility ... and sometimes this leads to quick & dirty.
But if you can, write good, clean, extendable and efficient scripts, you're doing yourself a favor. ^^
Your steps do fall under my Step 1 and 2. Quote the image of the dog with the tie in front of a PC with the slogan "I have no idea what i'm doing". ^^
Once you get the basics of development, you can adapt those to pretty much all languages out there. Amazon wasn't developed in a day, too!
Again thanks for all the replies. Makes me not feel insane when I can't figure out something haha.
Also just finished another codwars kata. Granted I ended up finding a solution again on stackoverflow but for once I was on the right track, I just didn't know how to put everything together. Goal was this
Write a function that takes a single string (word) as argument. The function must return an ordered list containing the indexes of all capital letters in the string.
var capitals = function (word) {
var newArray = [];
for (i=0; i<word.length; i++) {
if (word[i].match(/[A-Z]/)) {
newArray.push(i);
}
}
return newArray;
};
Basically my thought process was this.
1. Make a new var with an empty array.
2. Iterate through the string with a for loop.
3. Use a if statement to check for capitals.
4. find index of capitals in the string.
5. push index of capitals into new array.
6. return the new array with indexes.
Had a helluva time trying to figure out the if statement and I'm still unsure of how it's finding and listing the index numbers. But from what I understand, it's using a regular expression and the .match method to find all the capital letters in the string. I'm just not sure what it's doing to tell the computer what the index values are.
So basically I kinda knew how to start and finish the function but had no idea what to do in the middle. I definitely feel like my thought process is improving since I'm starting to figure out what tools to use and why rather than staring blankly at the screen.
Edit:
On a side note guess I'm doing ok learning JS and programming in general after about 1 1/2-2 months of serious learning.
Edit2: Just realized a good analogy for my progress haha. I've gotten much better at writing an outline for a function but still have issues filling in all the blanks. Also I'm still forgetting what exactly is going on behind the scenes for a for loop even though I know why it works.
So, I mainly just made some edits and gutted the site in the interim while I'm taking courses, but it's the first real update it's gotten in almost a year so I wanted some opinions on my site. Mainly about the layout / design, as well as the designs of the three (excluding ReclaimerHub and Gravity Gauntlet) logos on the homepage:
The first is just a simple shorthand for personal / portfolio work, while the PLC logo is going to see some more tweaks and working on. I'll probably try and consolidate the colon and the dot in the T of "Project" into a single character, somehow.
I had to struggle with the 'j' in project. I was looking for "procreate" somehow. Maybe make the dot stick up to the same height as the tip of the 't'?
I had to struggle with the 'j' in project. I was looking for "procreate" somehow. Maybe make the dot stick up to the same height as the tip of the 't'?
I'm pretty sure this is a question that popped up at least 200 times in the last 10 pages, but still...
So, while I'm waiting for the back-end people to do their job in a timely manner, instead of being bored out of my mind, sometimes I commit some back-end code just to spruce things up (and, remember guys: in Java you can't compare strings with == and, when everything fucks up, hope no one will blame the front-end dev ), and sometimes I think of what will be my next JS framework of choice.
I mean: at this point I feel confident enough with Angular, but you know, it's gonna die sooner rather than later, so the other day I gave a look at Angular 2, and... oh my god.
It's basically Java, with all those annotations and some other syntax stuff I recognize from my current project.
Now, let alone the fact that trying to learn it now is basically impossible (documentation is very barebone or even missing for lots of functions), I'm a bit wary of Java, considering how much I hated it back in university.
So I tried React, but the Flux tutorial requires npm-gyp which requires Python and some Visual Studio stuff, that I didn't want to install on my corporate PC.
And anyway, JSX grosses me out and I'd rather separate code and presentation.
Last but not least: it's not a full-fledged framework, and still routing in React completely escapes me. There'll be Relay at some point, but I've yet to look at its development state.
Then it came Backbone.
Backbone is older (and I think it shows in its code) but I've seen it almost always in jobs offers.
Point is: learning Backbone today is a future-proof enough choiche?
At this point, I'm basically spent. I don't know what to do, except, like, staying on Angular 1, but it's starting to bore me...
If you'd have to learn a JS framework today, for fun but at the same time as a career move, what would you do?
So I tried React, but the Flux tutorial requires npm-gyp which requires Python and some Visual Studio stuff, that I didn't want to install on my corporate PC.
And anyway, JSX grosses me out and I'd rather separate code and presentation.
Last but not least: it's not a full-fledged framework, and still routing in React completely escapes me.
I have used React and Backbone together for the last few products: Backbone for API communication and routing, React for everything else. And it's working out very well for me.
You don't have to use JSX-syntax if you don't want to (and just go with plain JavaScript syntax), but really, after you get over the idea of mixing code and presentation you'll realize that you have been doing that all the time anyway.
For your question, if I had to learn a JS framework today, well... it's all good. Switching around isn't very hard when you really get basics down. You have tried React and Angular, you could try Ember or learn Backbone or Meteor or something. Or just go all vanilla. Just keep on trying different things until you find something.
Backbone is really easy to learn compared to some of the other frameworks (Ember and Angular for example...)
I did not like the idea of my markup inside JS(X) in the first place, too. To be honest, I thought its a terrible idea. But it's really really cool and developing the view layer of things with it is a breeze.
The framework you use around it is another thing. We used Facebooks Flux, I tried Marty and Alt. You can use backbone as said above me. It's up to you.
I still don't know how to feel about the whole Webcomponent stuff. Well, I love custom elements and use them every day, but Polymer is on another level and it will be a while until it runs natively on most platforms. But thats an option, too.
I actually didn't think to mix stuff, but the idea of React+Backbone is totally engrossing, because it would make me learn two things in a single effort.
I've already started bookmarking some guides about integrating the two and as soon as I hit the office tomorrow I'm gonna try everything out.
You don't have to use JSX-syntax if you don't want to (and just go with plain JavaScript syntax), but really, after you get over the idea of mixing code and presentation you'll realize that you have been doing that all the time anyway.
Having a background in PHP and now Angular, I'm fully aware of having been doing it all the time.
Still, the idea of writing HTML directly inside JS makes me wary of code maintainability in the long term. Still #2, I should dive deeper in React before fully understanding how it would eventually pan out for me.
To be fully sincere, though, I'd have to admit that my opinion of it has grown warmer from the first time I've heard of it to when I actually wrote some lines of code in it.
Maybe I'm just annoyed from Sublime not hinting HTML tags inside render functions?
So for anyone else learning, coursera just announced new specializations starting soon. First course at least in the web dev spec is starting this Monday. All free to take unless you want to get a verified cert. Wish I had money for a verified cert but I am tempted to go for financial aid if the class proves useful.
I hope this is the right place to ask, but I'm going through modifying a forum theme, and there's something I can't figure out.
In this theme, the top_info thing that's created by a script always gets appended to the "top" div. Is it possible for me to change which div the top_info div is appended to?
So for anyone else learning, coursera just announced new specializations starting soon. First course at least in the web dev spec is starting this Monday. All free to take unless you want to get a verified cert. Wish I had money for a verified cert but I am tempted to go for financial aid if the class proves useful.
Anyone went from Chrome dev tools to Safari dev tools? I prefer Safari and I use it for everything except web dev since I'm really comfortable using Chromes dev tools. Would like to use one browser for everything if possible.
Anyone went from Chrome dev tools to Safari dev tools? I prefer Safari and I use it for everything except web dev since I'm really comfortable using Chromes dev tools. Would like to use one browser for everything if possible.
Yeah, they're not bad at all. I do miss some things such as the Toggle Device Mode. I use that often on Chrome and it's fantastic. I haven't been able to find something like that on Safari though I haven't explored too much yet. Someone should make a guide to highlight parallel features so the transition is easier!
I use Safari as my default browser now. My macs battery life and RAM usage noticeably improved since the switch.
Hi everyone. Can I please get your guidance? I've been wanting to build a website for a while now and have tried to learn programming on my own. That way I acquire the skills to apply to future projects or endeavors and I don't have to pay a third party for their efforts and my own convenience. Well, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc. were all super fun to learn, and I understand applying those languages to form front-end developments, but back-end stuff is totally beyond me. I tried for months now to work at this but just cannot grasp it.
So I figured screw it, I'll build my website on WordPress and just utilize plug ins and blah blah. Well, turns out even that is a bit over my head. I know how to integrate plugins and whatnot (BuddyPress, bbPress, s2member, so on and so on), but I don't' know how to turn those into the website I'm picture. So at this point I'm thinking I'll just pay someone to set up my website for me and teach me how to operate it... cause I'm feeling hopeless on learning this stuff.
I tried Google searching this question but didn't really find the best place, so I just wanted your advice: which agency should I reach out to for help building a website? Any recommendations you guys have? Or hell even freelancers? As long as they can build it and then teach me how to use it, that's all I care about. And pleasing front-end design and so forth. (I already have the logo figured out.) All I want to do is build a creative writing workshop that has a feature for you to highlight submitted text and add annotations/comments, just like what Microsoft Word does. Then other standard stuff that websites of the like usually implement, like weekly writing prompts, educational program to follow, challenges, yada-yada. Maybe an achievement system to make it fun, and a forum.
ANY advice for me? (Such as: you're over your head if you can't figure even this much out? Cause that's what I'm thinking, and it's killing my dream.)
Soooo ... boring times at the job, i decided to play around with Gulp, just simple things like minify/uglyfy, auto-prefixing, chaining/piping tasks etc ... the low basics.
Holy heck, why haven't i put some time and will into this earlier? Just getting rid of such simple but annoying tasks was already an enlightment... and all that with some simple command line words blazing fast. Call me a believer.
Digged through some tutorials and docs, has anyone some deeper stuff that highlights some of the more complex things with Gulp/Grunt?
Hi everyone. Can I please get your guidance? I've been wanting to build a website for a while now and have tried to learn programming on my own. That way I acquire the skills to apply to future projects or endeavors and I don't have to pay a third party for their efforts and my own convenience. Well, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc. were all super fun to learn, and I understand applying those languages to form front-end developments, but back-end stuff is totally beyond me. I tried for months now to work at this but just cannot grasp it.
So I figured screw it, I'll build my website on WordPress and just utilize plug ins and blah blah. Well, turns out even that is a bit over my head. I know how to integrate plugins and whatnot (BuddyPress, bbPress, s2member, so on and so on), but I don't' know how to turn those into the website I'm picture. So at this point I'm thinking I'll just pay someone to set up my website for me and teach me how to operate it... cause I'm feeling hopeless on learning this stuff.
I tried Google searching this question but didn't really find the best place, so I just wanted your advice: which agency should I reach out to for help building a website? Any recommendations you guys have? Or hell even freelancers? As long as they can build it and then teach me how to use it, that's all I care about. And pleasing front-end design and so forth. (I already have the logo figured out.) All I want to do is build a creative writing workshop that has a feature for you to highlight submitted text and add annotations/comments, just like what Microsoft Word does. Then other standard stuff that websites of the like usually implement, like weekly writing prompts, educational program to follow, challenges, yada-yada. Maybe an achievement system to make it fun, and a forum.
ANY advice for me? (Such as: you're over your head if you can't figure even this much out? Cause that's what I'm thinking, and it's killing my dream.)
Hmm, Agencies can be expensive, and im pretty sure they won't really teach you anything besides basic usage of the website they develop for you.
Freelancers can be less of a hit for the purse ... or a even bigger one, although they might be willing/able to teach/tutor you more.
Any colleges near you? Maybe you can get an IT/dev student for this. Might be the cheapest option.
But if you really want to learn web- / frontend- / backend-development, i would advise that you keep at it. It can be frustrating, that's a part of the job, and all devs have such moments, beginners, juniors and even seniors.
Have you tried some online courses like codeacademy.com?
Soooo ... boring times at the job, i decided to play around with Gulp, just simple things like minify/uglyfy, auto-prefixing, chaining/piping tasks etc ... the low basics.
Holy heck, why haven't i put some time and will into this earlier? Just getting rid of such simple but annoying tasks was already an enlightment... and all that with some simple command line words blazing fast. Call me a believer.
Digged through some tutorials and docs, has anyone some deeper stuff that highlights some of the more complex things with Gulp/Grunt?
I'm in the same position as you. Finally got around to teaching myself grunt and it's amazing. I've put together a script that does all the minifying, prefixing, etc so far and integrated file syncing (using grunt-sync), so I can sync my working folders to my local server (MAMP) and then livereload to show changes in the browser.
Just scratching the surface of this stuff and now I'm reading up that using Vagrant or a similar tool to setup a VM is a better way to go than using MAMP, so that might be my next step after I setup a starting project file and folder structure that I'm happy with.
Hi all, firstly I'm pretty glad I found this thread with the useful resources in the OP. Having graduated this year (July '15) in Digital Media Technology, I'm still looking and applying for entry/junior web design jobs starting from my local city as well as trying to get some practice in each day and build up a working portfolio (I have a semi active blog which needs a big makeover).
I have a few questions and I would really love to hear from as many insights/experience you guys may have faced.
Apologies if the questions sound too basic, I'd rather be reassured.
1. What is it like working as a entry/junior web designer? From my understanding, the seniors tend to supervise you more and you're not really expected to know everything at your level.
2. Are there any specific networking sites tailored specifically for web designers, or is it essentially who you can grab hold of to review your work whether it be via twitter/linkedin etc
3. What articles/blogs would you guys recommend I read so I can keep myself up to date on the latest news within the web design area.
4. What are the key differences between web design and development? There are mixed responses/opinions from other places I've read from. Is design more front end (with coding, HTML CSS etc) and development more back end?
Thanks so much! I don't frequent this site much, but I'll definitely hand around this thread more often reading.
Hi all, firstly I'm pretty glad I found this thread with the useful resources in the OP. Having graduated this year (July '15) in Digital Media Technology, I'm still looking and applying for entry/junior web design jobs starting from my local city as well as trying to get some practice in each day and build up a working portfolio (I have a semi active blog which needs a big makeover).
I have a few questions and I would really love to hear from as many insights/experience you guys may have faced.
Apologies if the questions sound too basic, I'd rather be reassured.
1. What is it like working as a entry/junior web designer? From my understanding, the seniors tend to supervise you more and you're not really expected to know everything at your level.
2. Are there any specific networking sites tailored specifically for web designers, or is it essentially who you can grab hold of to review your work whether it be via twitter/linkedin etc
3. What articles/blogs would you guys recommend I read so I can keep myself up to date on the latest news within the web design area.
4. What are the key differences between web design and development? There are mixed responses/opinions from other places I've read from. Is design more front end (with coding, HTML CSS etc) and development more back end?
Thanks so much! I don't frequent this site much, but I'll definitely hand around this thread more often reading.
1. Do you have any practical experience in the working field? Or just theory/basic practical stuff through your graduation? If the latter, you are in for a wild ride. ^^
After i finished my studies and started working (although as a underpaid trainee), my seniors basically showed me that i am Jon Snow ... aka you know nothing. ^^
Each team has their own package on what tools to use and how to work through the project-steps, the seniors are there to help you out, you have to grow into this ... just not expect that to happen in a matter of days/few weeks.
2/3. I like http://www.smashingmagazine.com/, pretty good articles, http://codepen.io/ has some stuff, too ... and i think you can show of parts of your own stuff there.
As always, Google is your friend, as is this thread!
4. Don't know if there is an "official" list of differences. For me, web design is about templating, CSS, HTML, Layout/Grid-Frame, Animation, UI ... basically without much depth into coding.
I tend to call myself a web developer, coding backend stuff (i.e. plugins/modules for CMS) and frontend stuff, but i'm also doing templating stuff/css ... although the less the better. ^^
I'm in the same position as you. Finally got around to teaching myself grunt and it's amazing. I've put together a script that does all the minifying, prefixing, etc so far and integrated file syncing (using grunt-sync), so I can sync my working folders to my local server (MAMP) and then livereload to show changes in the browser.
Just scratching the surface of this stuff and now I'm reading up that using Vagrant or a similar tool to setup a VM is a better way to go than using MAMP, so that might be my next step after I setup a starting project file and folder structure that I'm happy with.
Yeah, trying to figure out how to inculde this wizardry in my usual project flow ... although i tend to have quite different of those flows. Still, awesome tool i could have used much earlier!
Hmm, Agencies can be expensive, and im pretty sure they won't really teach you anything besides basic usage of the website they develop for you.
Freelancers can be less of a hit for the purse ... or a even bigger one, although they might be willing/able to teach/tutor you more.
Any colleges near you? Maybe you can get an IT/dev student for this. Might be the cheapest option.
But if you really want to learn web- / frontend- / backend-development, i would advise that you keep at it. It can be frustrating, that's a part of the job, and all devs have such moments, beginners, juniors and even seniors.
Have you tried some online courses like codeacademy.com?
Yeah, I tried courses like codecademy.com. I completed many of their courses: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, etcetera. I completed all these courses to learn a new language, but in the end I still have no idea how to use that knowledge to build a functional website, let alone the website I envision. I called up Dream Warrior for their consultation, and they say that a specific feature that I want for the website doesn't currently exist in another plugin, so they would charge ~$7K to create that technology. They also advised that if I call up or speak to anyone else regarding that idea that I have them sign a NDA lol. Overall Dream Warrior would charge ~30K. Would take me about a year to save up for that, and I want to start now.
I tried using platforms like WordPress...And I struggle turning it from a blog into the website I want. So I'm discouraged, cause I'm told that WordPress is the easiest one to use, and still I can't figure it out to build what I want. I guess I can try some freelancers? I mean I don't want a huge website that's super demanding on power and resources. Just a creative writing workshop with some features I think would be neat and useful for the writers to have. After they build it, it'd definitely be preferable that they teach me how to operate it. I imagine they would just choose some standard CMS and then spend a few months building the more specific parts. After they can just teach me how to use that CMS platform.
Any sites you guys know of that are great to reach out to web design freelancers in particular?
Yeah, I tried courses like codecademy.com. I completed many of their courses: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, etcetera. I completed all these courses to learn a new language, but in the end I still have no idea how to use that knowledge to build a functional website, let alone the website I envision. I called up Dream Warrior for their consultation, and they say that a specific feature that I want for the website doesn't currently exist in another plugin, so they would charge ~$7K to create that technology. They also advised that if I call up or speak to anyone else regarding that idea that I have them sign a NDA lol. Overall Dream Warrior would charge ~30K. Would take me about a year to save up for that, and I want to start now.
I tried using platforms like WordPress...And I struggle turning it from a blog into the website I want. So I'm discouraged, cause I'm told that WordPress is the easiest one to use, and still I can't figure it out to build what I want. I guess I can try some freelancers? I mean I don't want a huge website that's super demanding on power and resources. Just a creative writing workshop with some features I think would be neat and useful for the writers to have. After they build it, it'd definitely be preferable that they teach me how to operate it. I imagine they would just choose some standard CMS and then spend a few months building the more specific parts. After they can just teach me how to use that CMS platform.
Any sites you guys know of that are great to reach out to web design freelancers in particular?
Yeah, I tried courses like codecademy.com. I completed many of their courses: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, etcetera. I completed all these courses to learn a new language, but in the end I still have no idea how to use that knowledge to build a functional website, let alone the website I envision. I called up Dream Warrior for their consultation, and they say that a specific feature that I want for the website doesn't currently exist in another plugin, so they would charge ~$7K to create that technology. They also advised that if I call up or speak to anyone else regarding that idea that I have them sign a NDA lol. Overall Dream Warrior would charge ~30K. Would take me about a year to save up for that, and I want to start now.
I tried using platforms like WordPress...And I struggle turning it from a blog into the website I want. So I'm discouraged, cause I'm told that WordPress is the easiest one to use, and still I can't figure it out to build what I want. I guess I can try some freelancers? I mean I don't want a huge website that's super demanding on power and resources. Just a creative writing workshop with some features I think would be neat and useful for the writers to have. After they build it, it'd definitely be preferable that they teach me how to operate it. I imagine they would just choose some standard CMS and then spend a few months building the more specific parts. After they can just teach me how to use that CMS platform.
Any sites you guys know of that are great to reach out to web design freelancers in particular?
I was in the exact position as your a couple months ago. I could not find a development house that was within my budget. Through some research I found crew.co which is a Canadian firm that matches you with a developer interested in working on your project. They charge a 15% fee to utilize their service but they manage the agreement and can help you in the process of picking a developer/designer that is right for your project. It took a ton of time for me to settle on the developer so my project is just getting started. Its another way to at least get in contact with a couple different developers who may be what you are looking for.
I love node and npm as much as the next person, but fuck off the Visual Studio requirement to run node-gyp on Windows.
Is it even possible they need a VC++ compiler (which MS apparently doesn't release as standalone, but only bundled in a multi-GB software)? Why don't they try to make it work with some lighter C++ compiler instead?
This whole thing is making really hard for me to follow a great tutorial I've found on React/Redux which uses Webpack and Socket.io.
I love node and npm as much as the next person, but fuck off the Visual Studio requirement to run node-gyp on Windows.
Is it even possible they need a VC++ compiler (which MS apparently doesn't release as standalone, but only bundled in a multi-GB software)? Why don't they try to make it work with some lighter C++ compiler instead?
This whole thing is making really hard for me to follow a great tutorial I've found on React/Redux which uses Webpack and Socket.io.
Yessir, I've read that thread (and many others!) several times in the last few days, helplessly hoping to find a workaround.
Fact is: most of my free time happens... while I'm at work, on my work PC, on the crappy work connection.
I've tried installing the SDK several times, with no avail. Now I'm downloading VS Express 2013 for Win, but it's apparently more than 3GB of stuff, and it's taking forever - if it's even moving at all... :'(
So it's cheating living in the Bay lol. Just found an amazing coding meetup that was everything I was looking for. Learned so much and I may finally get my first real project off the ground. I'm working on the freecodecamp zipline to reverse engineer a portfolio site and with help from the meetup was able to get it setup on github. I learned some new stuff with my code editor and bit more about how to use github and in general good practices on projects and updating them.
Also looks like I may finally have a use for my old laptop since currently I was using my sister's laptop whenever she didn't need it. Going back to the meetup on Sat to learn how to get linux up and running.
I was in the exact position as your a couple months ago. I could not find a development house that was within my budget. Through some research I found crew.co which is a Canadian firm that matches you with a developer interested in working on your project. They charge a 15% fee to utilize their service but they manage the agreement and can help you in the process of picking a developer/designer that is right for your project. It took a ton of time for me to settle on the developer so my project is just getting started. Its another way to at least get in contact with a couple different developers who may be what you are looking for.
Thanks for this. I may use them. I've looked into sites like Guru.com and Freelancer.com and ProgrammerMeetDesigner.com. All of the quotes and template responses are a bit overwhelming, to say the least. If it's not too personal to ask, and if you have no problem disclosing, do you think you could PM me around how much you ended up spending through them? Just trying to weigh my options compared by budget. Dream Warrior = 30K +, freelancers seem to offering 5K - 10K on average.
I thought my app was leaking some serious memory but apparently I stumbled onto a known Chrome issue? When I refresh a page its memory footprint in the Task Manager jumps a few MB or so. For my app, which was using live-reload, it apparently ballooned a 23MB app to 200MB over the course of several days. I say apparently because I didn't notice until now, and it hovered around 180-200MB until I killed the process.
I thought my app was leaking some serious memory but apparently I stumbled onto a known Chrome issue? When I refresh a page its memory footprint in the Task Manager jumps a few MB or so. For my app, which was using live-reload, it apparently ballooned a 23MB app to 200MB over the course of several days. I say apparently because I didn't notice until now, and it hovered around 180-200MB until I killed the process.
Did you find the cause for the memory leak? 200MB doesn't sound too drastic anyway (unless you are doing a mobile app, I guess), but could be a good time to learn how to catch leaks via the dev tools if you haven't already.
Chrome is pretty loose with it's memory management (which usually is the source for the "zomg Chrome is a memory hog" topics) too.
) grows exponentially.
