Python 1.2 - Tips
So you decided to go on with Codecademy, great stuff! You're about to start your very own adventure towards becoming a coder (or code literate person, if that's your goal) and Codecademy is definitely the way to go. Here are a few tips I though of while doing my time, I hope you'll find them helpful!
Keep a well organised documentation.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Codecademy is very simple. Which is great, because it keeps you away from the distractions. You simply answer question after question and don't worry what happens with them. But what happens with them? I'm not sure. What I found out is that sometimes they are saved a way you wrote them, but sometimes they take a shape of something the guys from Codecademy thought of. Either way, to remember where specific exercise was and to access it, it might take a while. What you'll come across very often on your way to becoming a programmer is that documentation is everything. It's true at the very beginning, when you want to be able to quickly refresh you memory with specific lines of code and sure will be true when you write blocks and blocks of awesome code that does amazing things, but for the others (and you in the future!) to understand the code - they'll need some documentation explaining what it does exactly. So keep it organised at all times. I'm a messer, so I had to readjust. But it helps a lot.
I recommend to you two ways of doing it. As these are your first steps and you might want to keep things simple, let's not gallop too far with it and let's for now leave stuff like IDEs (Integrated Development Environment), clud IDEs and github alone (but if you want to jump straight to IDEs then post about them coming soon). So here's what you can do:
Option 1: If you have a Google Account you can use their super simple Google Drive and create a folder in there where you keep your notes. If you don't know how to access it just open a google.com website and follow those steps:
Then create a folder that describes what it's for:
And then go to that folder and create new Google Docs files (like MS Word) where you'll be pasting your codes. I recommend to create separate files for separate topics and name them clearly, so it's easy to navigate through them and find topics you're interested in. Below an example how it might look like - file naming template is [number of a subject]-[number of a lesson] [listed topics that the lesson is talking about].
Play around with your code.
What you'll be primarily doing on Codecademy is following their instructions and answering their questions. They expect from you to do exactly as they ask, so their algorithms can check if it's right or not. Sometimes you'll get a message saying that something is wrong with your code and until you fix it, you won't be able to move on. But when you get it right and Codecademy allows you to move forward, you can still stay on the page and play around with your code. So if you ever wonder "what if" - just put it in there and Run it and see what happens. So basically, what you can do now is use Codecademy as your first, very basic IDE that you can test your current understanding of Python on.
Don't give up!
And last but not least, don't give up! Programming can seem hard, scary and just... weird! Part of your brain will scream "run, run like a wind before the universe explodes!"... that's completely normal. It is new, and it is hard, and it is scary at the beginning, but what everyone would tell you is that the more you learn, the less it all feels scary! It become more and more satisfying and fascinating and before long, you will be sitting in front of a nice, comfortable desk in you new dream job!
Here's some motivational video from mr Aee Kay to kick things off!
Keep a well organised documentation.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Codecademy is very simple. Which is great, because it keeps you away from the distractions. You simply answer question after question and don't worry what happens with them. But what happens with them? I'm not sure. What I found out is that sometimes they are saved a way you wrote them, but sometimes they take a shape of something the guys from Codecademy thought of. Either way, to remember where specific exercise was and to access it, it might take a while. What you'll come across very often on your way to becoming a programmer is that documentation is everything. It's true at the very beginning, when you want to be able to quickly refresh you memory with specific lines of code and sure will be true when you write blocks and blocks of awesome code that does amazing things, but for the others (and you in the future!) to understand the code - they'll need some documentation explaining what it does exactly. So keep it organised at all times. I'm a messer, so I had to readjust. But it helps a lot.
I recommend to you two ways of doing it. As these are your first steps and you might want to keep things simple, let's not gallop too far with it and let's for now leave stuff like IDEs (Integrated Development Environment), clud IDEs and github alone (but if you want to jump straight to IDEs then post about them coming soon). So here's what you can do:
Option 1: If you have a Google Account you can use their super simple Google Drive and create a folder in there where you keep your notes. If you don't know how to access it just open a google.com website and follow those steps:
Click on the 9-rectangles icon and choose a Google Drive app.
Then create a folder that describes what it's for:
And then go to that folder and create new Google Docs files (like MS Word) where you'll be pasting your codes. I recommend to create separate files for separate topics and name them clearly, so it's easy to navigate through them and find topics you're interested in. Below an example how it might look like - file naming template is [number of a subject]-[number of a lesson] [listed topics that the lesson is talking about].
Option 2: if you want to keep it even simpler, I think you know what you can do. Just do exactly the same, but keep it on your computer. That way you won't be able to access it from other computer (while you can access your Google Drive on any computer), but assuming you'll be learning on only one station, that should be good enough.
Note: as I mentioned, these are just two ideas for storing your notes and they will obviously evolve in the future as you start to use more advanced tools, but it's a good start. If you are a pen and paper kind of a person and would like to have your notes in a notebook (like I do!) then just keep in mind it will be so much harder to find and rewrite them in the future. At some stage you'll realise that it's a huge time waster, so I recommend using digital notes. After all, this is the direction you're going to!
Practice makes perfect.
That's actually a name of one of the topics on Codecademy. And it's very, very true. So I encourage you to do some of the exercises a couple of times just to make sure you really got it. Codecademy's hints are very useful when you get stuck, but they also allow you to proceed without fully understanding the topic. But it's really important you grasp all the concepts that those guys are trying to teach you. It might take a bit longer that way, but it's sure worth a while. Not only that gives you a better foundation to do bigger and more advanced things, but also gives you more confidence and motivation to dig deeper. It took me a good while to fully comprehend all the topics and concepts and for all the information to really sink in, but at least now I feel so much more ready to move on now.
Play around with your code.
What you'll be primarily doing on Codecademy is following their instructions and answering their questions. They expect from you to do exactly as they ask, so their algorithms can check if it's right or not. Sometimes you'll get a message saying that something is wrong with your code and until you fix it, you won't be able to move on. But when you get it right and Codecademy allows you to move forward, you can still stay on the page and play around with your code. So if you ever wonder "what if" - just put it in there and Run it and see what happens. So basically, what you can do now is use Codecademy as your first, very basic IDE that you can test your current understanding of Python on.
Don't give up!
And last but not least, don't give up! Programming can seem hard, scary and just... weird! Part of your brain will scream "run, run like a wind before the universe explodes!"... that's completely normal. It is new, and it is hard, and it is scary at the beginning, but what everyone would tell you is that the more you learn, the less it all feels scary! It become more and more satisfying and fascinating and before long, you will be sitting in front of a nice, comfortable desk in you new dream job!
Here's some motivational video from mr Aee Kay to kick things off!
Thanks for reading and good luck :)
J.
J.
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