myprogrammingjournal-blog

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

Why I Hate DataCamp

I signed up for Data Camp a couple of months ago and the first thing I was met with was a great deal that only lasted for a week or two. It was for a one time payment of a yearly subscription and it only lasts for the week or two after one signs up. Then it says the subscription is “X less amount of dollars per month than a monthly subscription”. But one has to strain to discover that this is actually a one time payment and not a monthly payment. I was stupid enough to buy the subscription thinking it was monthly payments for a year and that’s on me and my stupidity. But from then on, I couldn’t help but feeling like the website was predatory.  

They never proved me wrong; that they weren’t predatory. After all, what is the reason people sign up to a website like data camp? Because they want to be data scientists. And this leads me to the next thing that I believe is predatory: you will not become a data scientist just because you’ve done data camp courses. I will elaborate.

They advertise hundreds of courses and lots of projects. But what are these courses? What are they exactly teaching? Each course and lesson is just fill in the blank. And they tell you exactly what to fill in the blanks with. You have extremely little control of the code that you write. They do all the thinking for you. All you need to do is follow along and feel good about yourself. You fill in blanks and then they pat you on the back and say “good job”. This is a career that they advertise as having a yearly salary of 100,000 dollars. If it was that easy, anyone could do it. But data science requires a lot more than what data camp offers. 

Data camp only glosses over topics and doesn’t give anything the depth of explanation that's required. No course work either. Just review. And the review is, you guessed it, fill in the blank. 

Tldr; Don’t be suckered into anything that takes advantage of people who want to get from point A to point B quickly/easily/fun-ly.

quick edit: the people at data camp do seem like nice people and I feel bad dissing their hard work so harshly. Even if they do mean well and aren’t trying to capitalize on the data science trend, even if they’re honestly trying to create a bridge towards the career, I think they need to rework their website teach critical thinking and give more course work and required reading and an experience more closely to that of a legitimate academic experience. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

6/16/19

Feeling better today than yesterday. Today was just a review day. I had a lot to go over since I hadn’t reviewed in a while. I’m still struggling to find an approach to learning. Is it even worth putting every function I come across on flash cards? There’s too much to learn. I don’t think it’s possible to remember it all. So what do I memorize? This is something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I always wonder how and what I should be learning...

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

6/14/19

It’s been a little over 4 months since I started my programming journey. It all started with a “game” I made on a website but all I could do was design it; not program anything. And I thought it would be really cool to learn how to program stuff in it. I envied people who could type all of this hacker looking stuff and make the computer do stuff. 

It’s been over 4 months since then and I’ve studied and suffered and worked every day. So the questions now are do I regret it yet? Am I slowing down? Was it just a fad? What have I learned that I wish I knew when I started?

Do I regret it? Short answer: no. Long answer: Programming has given my life such great purpose. The topics of my life in the past 4 months have been suffering and self improvement. Without programming, the only topic of the past 4 months would’ve been suffering. I don’t regret a second of it.

Am I slowing down? No, I’m picking up, if anything. At first, I was only able to spend an hour learning. And now I just program whenever I have the chance. It’s become less of a hobby and more of an obsession. I want to dedicate my life to it.

Was it just a fad?  No. Sometimes I feel insecurity like maybe I am losing focus or interest. But that’s just my depression speaking and I always rebound.

What have I learned that I wish I knew when I started? The biggest thing I’ve learned was finding my direction in programming. Programming can encompass a lot of things: web development, machine learning, video game development. It’s so big that one should try to choose a path unless they’re a genius or something. Another thing I’ve learned is that I’m impatient. I’ve spent months trying to learn but I’m still just a beginner. But more experienced people would look at that and say “that’s no time at all”. I’ve learned so much but I don’t have the time to go over it all.

Things aren’t going well for me. I’m depressed, as usual, and my relationship with my girlfriend is in a place that makes me very uncomfortable. It was hard to focus today. I’m intimidated by how strongly her emotions can sometimes control the way she thinks, and acts, and what she believes is real. I haven’t meditated in 3 days so I think I’ll do that now. I picked up meditation and it’s been helping me with my mental issues.

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

Update 5/27/19

Wow, it’s been almost a whole month since I last posted anything. I guess I can’t make any more false promises anymore to keep doing this daily. I’ll just try to do what I can when I’m able. 

So what has happened in the past month?

I switched to python. This was not an impulsive decision. I had been feeling something with javascript that I couldn’t explain. And once it clicked, I was finally able to explain it. 

Everything I was learning was in the context of web development. But I never wanted to be a web developer. I just didn’t understand that javascript was all about web development and I thought maybe I’d be able to find things outside of web development in javascript.

After doing research I learned that what I was interested in was data science. So once I learned there was this whole other side of programming that represented everything I was interested in, I immediately felt like I had a much clearer vision for my future. The future of sticking with javascript would make me a good web developer. But that had nothing to do with what I was interested in. I wanted to be good at stuff to do with data science. 

So I switched to Python. Python is a good language because its syntax is easy. It’s also good for data science. It has all of this cool AI stuff too. And the website I’m using, datacamp, teaches python in the context of data science. It’s PERFECT. Everything is falling into place.

Everything except one thing. Depression is kicking my ass. I’ve slept more lately than ever. I can’t sleep enough. I feel drained constantly. I don’t care about anything sometimes. I hate everything sometimes. I just want to be left alone. I just want to sleep. But at the same time, I desperately want to be energized and happy. It’s such a crap hole. It gets worse each time these depressive periods strike. 

I’m spiraling. I’ve been spiraling for years but it was always manageable. I need to get medication soon. I’m sick of not feeling. I’m tired. I feel like a tired robot. I must appear like a tired robot too. Where was all of the energy I had a couple months ago? Where has it all gone? I felt like I could’ve changed the world. I was changing myself. Now, the only positive feeling that’s left, is the desire to keep programming. I keep programming because it makes me feel productive and valuable. At the end of the day, I like having that feeling that at least I programmed today.

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/29/19

I realized something. That learning programming is more than just doing online lessons. Doing lessons is only learning part of programming. The other part involves just doing and creating. Only then do you learn the holes in your understanding and also different ways of combining what you’ve learned through the lessons. 

I was thinking of doing as “practicing” and the lessons are “learning”. But doing is actually “learning” and lessons are also “learning”. They’re both different aspects of learning. And I haven’t spent nearly enough time learning about applied javascript. So from now on, I’m going to take a different approach to learning.

The whole picture: 1) Learning through reading 2) Learning through doing

Lastly, I need to remember to keep being patient. It’s okay to forget.

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/27/19

Each day I’m learning a bit more, I guess. There’s still a whole lot to learn. I feel frustrated because I feel like I’m learning and learning and yet going nowhere at the same time. Thinking about taking a different approach. Maybe spend more time on creating things. Like follow youtube tutorials and stuff. It seems like learning is only half of the battle. I need to spend more time doing. But I’ve felt lost since I’m not good at thinking up things to do. If I’m given a blank file, I would have no idea what to turn it into. I am totally devoid of creative energy. Very frustrating. I can learn all the tools in the world and yet do absolutely nothing with them. 

Thinking this out makes me realize that doing stuff would be a good way to fill in the gaps of my understanding. I understand some tools but I have no idea how to go about doing anything. And I don’t understand all of the tools in my chosen languages. It’s only been maybe 2 and a half months that I’ve been programming but it’s frustrating because I learn stuff and do these algorithm challenges but then I look at code and it’s all classes, which I don’t understand, and lots of “this” and it’s all foreign. I need to dig deeper. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/23/19

Allergies have gotten me really groggy for the past 2 days or so. I’ve also been really hot. Terrible sleep. At least I hope it’s allergies and not depression. I’m just so dang groggy it’s hard to focus on anything. Then I get these sparks where I can think clearly and I’m fine and during those sparks is when I try to do the most. Like last night the grogginess went away so I read a chapter from my book. The book is really great and I look forward to learning more from it. I just wanna keep improving in javascript. 

Right now the section is on React and I’m totally clueless. The explanations are pretty bad. The lessons in general are pretty bad. Almost lazy. I’ll have to probably learn more about react outside outside of FCC. 

I’m beginning to understand that FCC doesn’t provide the whole picture. I’m going to have to get the whole picture from other resources. Something like w3schools mixed with eloquent javascript would paint a very good picture. But I’m lazy and I enjoy the process of completing lessons and challenges and stuff. Just teaching me tools with a few exercises here and there isn’t nearly as satisfying as having challenges accompanied with those tools. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/21/19

Feeling really groggy. I finished the sassy css section of the front end libraries section. So that’s 3 sections down: bootstrap, jQuery, and sass. I’m plowing through these sections. Sass was pretty deep for css. I learned a lot and it was programming-intensive. There’s loops and conditionals and variables. It felt like a programming lanugage. So I enjoyed that more than I expected to. Tomorrow I think is react which is a huge section and it has to do with javascript so that’s exciting. I’m just so tired man. The past 2 days have been absolutely joyless. I think I need antidepressants. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/20/19

My JavaScript book came. I’m really excited about it. I already read a chapter. Plus, I finished the jQuery section in one night. I’m so tired though. Tonight might be the end of my insomnia. I hope so because I just want to wake up normally and start exercising by walking around the neighborhood when I have excess energy. I’m also turning my notes into flashcards on anki so I’d like to get that done. Feeling depressed and tired. Not even hopeful today. Just tired and drained. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/19/19

So tomorrow/today is when my JavaScript book finally comes. It’s been 8 days or so since I ordered it. Definitely looking forward to it. I also started the Front End Libraries certification. I need to re-study everything I’ve learned but it’s so boring and dry. I just can’t find much energy to go over everything. Feeling a bit irritable and worn out today. Not sure how to fix it. 

I thought front end libraries were things I had to download. But they seem to be things you just import by link. And then they can be used. So far I’m learning bootstrap. What I’ve learned is that there are a lot of pre-made classes to use. These classes seem to add context and also color to elements. And bootstrap formats under a 12 column grid system. I really like that. And it’s easy to make the page more responsive. I’d like to mess around with it more. 

The next front end library will be jquery. Definitely looking forward to good ol’ programming again after so long. Still, I’m impatient and feeling frustrated that I don’t remember as much as I want to remember. It’s also frustrating that I still don’t understand the connection between javascript and html/css. I’ve been waiting for this missing link to be filled for so long. 

Just to get the fundamentals down for all 3 languages is a lot of work. And then being able to connect them all together is even more work. I can’t believe I’ve learned this much and I’ve gotten this far. It’s so much and I’m still at beginner level. Just gotta keep moving forward and figure out a study method. Someone recommended me anki. I think maybe I should use anki. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/18/19

I finished my final project for responsive web design. Now I have 2 certifications in responsive web design and javascript algorithms and data structures. I’m really happy about that but not much else. I’m still having some personal issues. Feelings of irritation and unhappiness. I’m going through a lot personally that I can’t completely talk about on here. But I’ll know what I mean if I reread this. So it’s difficult. I need to be strong though. My girlfriend needs me so I stay strong for as long as she needs me. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/17/19

Things are getting better, slowly but surely. And last night, it felt like I was able to make all of this CSS and HTML stuff click. I didn’t really understand any way to format a page except for the traditional methods like by manually adjusting top, bottom, right, and left. But I worked more on understanding flexbox and that made formatting feel a lot easier and it clicked for me. I think all I needed was some good practice. With all of the lessons and whatnot in freecodecamp, they’re not good at offering ways to practice that information until you get to some huge project that feels overwhelming. And they manage to ask stuff of you that they never even taught. It’s a bit sloppy. But FCC is an amazing and free resource and I love it and all of its contributors and community.

I only have one more project and then I’ll be done with the responsive web design certification! Very excited about that! It doesn’t even feel real yet! It’s been a long time since I’ve been deep into javascript and I look forward to making it all work together. I hope this post has been coherent. My head feels very fuzzy and weird today and I seem to be a bit irritable. Despite the mild irritability, I’m feeling a sense of overall optimism. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/13/19

Wow it’s been 8 days since my last post. That’s so unacceptable. 

Personal Stuff

    I’ve been having a lot of issues; mentally and physically. This has been a rough time for me. And it will continue to be rough for some time. The past couple of days I’ve been suffering from a tooth infection. The pain would be so bad, it’d keep me up late at night, ruining my sleep schedule. And the constant dehydration and fever sucks. I’ve also been suffering mentally from what I figure is depression. During this time of suffering, I’ve projected my hopes onto programming and the idea of moving forward. As long as I keep moving forward, it’s okay. That brings me onto my next topic.

Programming Stuff

    It’s amazing how far I’ve come in the lesson plan, and how backwards I feel like I’m going. My brain feels dumber and I look back on stuff I did in javascript and don’t understand it. How is it that I’m moving forward but backwards at the same time? What is this crap? It’s incredibly frustrating. My brain on antibiotics makes me feel more sympathetic to people with learning disabilities. It’s hard to absorb or recall any information. I’m almost done with the HTML and CSS section at FCC. This is good because I feel like I’m losing focus of what I enjoy about programming. This has been a couple weeks of learning things that I don’t enjoy. And then slowly forgetting the information that I do enjoy just for the sake of learning this stuff because I have to. How do I hold it all together? I hardly study because of my eagerness to get it over with. I’m thinking that tomorrow I’ll have a big study session. Maybe complete a project too. I’ll have the time to do a lot I think. 

The Lesson to be Learned

    A lesson I haven’t learned yet is that I’m impatient. I expect to go over this mass of information, fill 3 notebooks full of notes, and then remember it all. And anything less makes me feel frustrated. I expect my brain to be functioning at full capacity on antibiotics with a fever and tooth infection. And anything less makes me feel frustrated. Through writing out my thoughts and feelings in this journal, I’ve realized that I’m incredibly impatient. While I’ve come to understand this in my head, I haven’t been able to get it through to my feelings. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/5/19

I’m learning more and more each day. But I’m also afraid that I’m forgetting more and more each day. I have a constant anxiety that I won’t be able to retain all of this information. Or that I’m slowly forgetting JavaScript. I know that I need to study but there’s more to it. I haven’t really practiced CSS or HTML in the way that I was able to practice JavaScript. I was able to do challenges and stuff every day in JS. But with CSS and HTML, I haven’t put much into practice. I want to spend more time practicing it because I feel lost in how to implement it. And I still have no idea how to link JavaScript with CSS or HTML. It’s like there’s this missing piece on how they even interact with each other. I wouldn’t even know why I’d want to use JavaScript with CSS or HTML. What’s the purpose of all these functions and algorithms I’ve made and how does that connect with CSS and HTML? Idk. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/4/19

Today I worked on some more CSS and HTML. It’s getting a bit more interesting but it’s a lot to take in. I feel impatient and want to just keep grinding out the lessons but remember them at first glance as well. That’s unrealistic. I just need to keep practicing self discipline and keep studying and grinding. Some of the concepts today were difficult. Such as the position property. Something I’ve noticed is for each property, or whatever you’d call them, there’s a lot of different values to put in. It’ll take a lot to remember what most stuff does. Also, my head still feels slightly fuzzy from burnout/over-studying. I still have the drive and excitement to keep going but my head mentally just can’t after a while. That’s frustrating. 

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

4/3/19 Rough Times

I’ve been pushing myself so hard lately that sometimes I get burnt out and my brain craps out on me. So today was about study and relaxation. The truth is I didn’t feel like doing anything programming related at all. But then I watched a motivational video on youtube and it helped motivate me to study. My fears of losing memory of JavaScript have been becoming true. So I’m glad I could study to help cement that knowledge. I’ll have to keep it up so I’ll always have that knowledge at my fingertips when I need it. 

It’s been rough though. Things have been really bad for the past month. Every day has been a mini torture in some way or another. And it adds up. Today was a bit of a breaking point. Last night, I prayed so hard with all my heart. I said that I can’t take it any more. I told God that I needed him so badly to help me... And today still turned out badly. And that was the breaking point for me. I had a crisis of faith. I came to the conclusion that God is not helpful or reliable. And trying to rely on him only brings disappointment. Except when it doesn’t. It’s an abusive relationship. And I need to be stronger. But that made me sad. I’ve wanted to believe so badly that I can trust in God. But despite everything, he’s been unreliable and sometimes there’s only 2 conclusions I could even draw; 1) he doesn’t exist or 2) he’s screwing with me. Every time my soul is uplifted just to be crushed again, there’s a little voice that says clearly in the back of my head “God hates you.” 

And yet... and yet I can’t bring myself to stop believing. I’m searching and trying to find God. My heart is determined in this quest to find him. And after some thinking I’ve come to a new conclusion. From the bible that says “trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I can hold onto this. And I think I will. But I want to be stronger too. I want to be able to rely on myself and not wait around for God to make things good. When things get tough, God isn’t really making things better. He lets me suffer for long periods of time. So my understanding of God is different from my expectations. That he should be helping me if I need him. 

But no, I was wrong in thinking that. I had the wrong idea of God. I need to help myself. I need to be strong on my own and do what I can for myself. And God will keep working His magic in his own way. I think that is the balance that I need to come to.

[myprogrammingjournal-blog]

3/31/19 New Language

It’s 2 hours before my birthday. I’ve spent all day learning HTML and CSS. I feel a bit afraid that making this switch might push out everything I’ve learned with JavaScript. That seems to be my biggest fear right now. HTML and CSS doesn’t seem particularly difficult in the way that programming can be. 

JavaScript is for programming, HTML is for formatting, CSS is for styling. 

Anyways, I’m gonna take a break now and play some video games for a bit. I’ve progressed so much in the past 2 months since I started programming. I’m happy I’m keeping this journal so I can reflect back on my journey into the world of programming and see the challenges and difficulties I was facing. 

I feel happy that I finished JavaScript for now but also sad because I finished JavaScript. I still have so much to learn anyways. I just finished the course. So I should definitely keep reading up on w3schools. But most of my time for the next month or so will probably be dedicated to HTML and CSS. Booo!