Experience with Bloc
I’ve been at Bloc for almost a month and it’s been crazy to see how much I’ve learned. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started the course, but I am happy with the hands-on approach of the school. After the first lesson I completed, my mentor and I were building a page using HTML and CSS in our first meeting together. I would have never imagined that after one lesson, I’d already be making a page.
What I like about Bloc is that I’m learning so many new tools that developers use that I had no clue about. Towards the end of the first week, I started using Git, which is a version control system that is extremely useful when working on a project with a team. I had no experience with it, so it was challenging to understand, but with the Bloc guide it has become a lot easier to learn. I also never realized how much I would be using the Command Line. I remember the only time I had ever seen someone pull up the command line was when I brought my computer to my University’s computer shop to connect to the school’s internet. Even then, everything I saw on the screen looked outdated and foreign. Now I’m using it to make directories and files at a much higher speed than manually making a file on my desktop. The last developer tool that I learned about was DevTools on Chrome. This has proved to be the most useful tool when trying to figure out what is wrong with my code, particularly when using Javascript.
After learning about Git and the Command Line, I then began to learn Javascript. For me personally, I don’t think Javascript hasn’t been too difficult to learn so far. What I think makes it easier for me is that I have a tiny bit of experience with Ruby and so although the languages are different, I do believe that all the programming languages I’ve seen share some similarities that make them easier and easier to learn. I would still consider myself a beginner at Javascript, but I’m getting better and better day by day. After Javascript, I began to learn jQuery. jQuery is much easier to learn than javascript in the fact that you can use less code to say the same thing. However, javascript’s speed is much faster than jQuery so keep that in mind when programming.
Lastly, I got to put everything that I learned together in the Bloc Jams project. This was quite the experience because I got to see what it takes to make a functioning site work. It was also really cool because I got to replicate Spotify, which I use all the time! There were so many challenges along the way with the project and so I’m interested in how the next project will go. Will I have the same challenges along the way? Are my mistakes from Bloc Jams going to make the next project any smoother? Only time will tell, but I’m excited to see what happens! Til next time!