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My Reflections - Sprint Two

Your Blog

Describe what you did in this exercise. Did you understand the steps that you were making? Can you describe them in simple terms?

I was to set up a basic template of the blog that I will be working on for the rest of foundations. I was asked to create a new directory in my repository to work on and add work to. the .html is my website skeleton and the .css file is for adding specific charactoristics to it.

Yes I did understand the steps that I was making as seen on tutorial video. Simply put I was asked to create a website that can be used on an internet broweser. I was asked to then add a component to that file that will allow me to make stylistic changes to the page. I was then asked to link the style changes to my website of plain text for future adjustments.

Did you achieve the learning competencies and keep within the timebox?

I have successfully achieved the lerning competencies and kepth within the time box.

Learn HTML and CSS

What resources did you use during this challenge? Why did you choose those ones?

I chose to work on both freecodecamp and Udacity. I liked freecodecamp because everything you need is on one screen that is split clearly onto 3 sections. You track or test your progress as you work. The instructions are helpful but it does give quite a bit away at times.

Udacity is an awesome work along media based platform that left a little bit of room for the imagination and had useful quizzes to break up the lerning progress to help with your understanding. The coding practice wasn't quite as useful or intuative as freecodecamp but the rate or learning and explanations are better for complete beginners like myself.

What obstacles did you come up against? How did you overcome them?

Most of the problems I encountered were in a actual definition or DOM, responsive wed design and semantic. I understand these works (except for DOM) in a normal context but not in html. It wasn't until after some research post freecodecamp and Udacity exercises that explained exactly what it was and how relevant it was to what I had just learnt. Technically speaking, responsive web design gave me the most trouble as the concepts were a little hard to get used to. I used a lot of Youtube video examples and refered them back to the lessons for additional practice in order to gain a better understanding of the functions and how they actually apply in real time.

What were you most proud of during this challenge?

That after a good chunk of work and research I actually managed to get it without needing to get in touch with a tutor. Of course not all of it, I would definitely not say that I am fluent but I understand the concepts and wite a basic semantic structure without needed reference. The CSS component will need a bit of work but I am confident that i can create and work with in without assistence.

Did you keep within the timebox suggestions?

Used about an hour less than listed for the platform exercises and about 15mins less for the online research phase so in short, Yes.

How much faster could you do it if you started from the beginning again, right now?

I would probably be able to cut down the platform exercises by about 1/3 of the time as I wouldn't really need to take a minute to unserstand what it's actually asking me to do.

Add HTML and CSS to your Blog Challenge

Write a small story about HTML and CSS and their relationship. You could personify elements or speak from your own personal experience. The story should capture insight about the nature of HTML and CSS.

When my sister and I were younger and had more time on our hands, we often spoke about one day open a bakery. I, being the less artistic one, would design the menu and crate the base for all of our products. Things like yeast starters, baking simple spongues and kneading and prepping various dough. My sister would then use that product and turn them into various delights. She was dress the cake with icing, add filling to strudles and dressing little sweet treats. She would then decide on where to put it on display in our little shop so that the customers would look at them and think them delicious (and ultimately buy them). I, in this case would be the html, creating a structure and filling it with content. My sister would then be CSS, applying an aesthetic appeal to the wedsite while making it user friendly at the same time. The things that I make, being the menu and base product would be the semantic elements and structure, while my sister would fill to product with designs and userbility for different types of people, what ever the need.

What obstacles did you come up against? How did you overcome them?

The main problem that I had was the actual structure, trying the get the blocks in each section to align. I spent about 3 hours reserching and tweaking the the CSS style when it finally worked. I also went back to some of the freecodecamp lessons and used W3Schools a mojor reference for code structure and style.

Any moments of surprise or joy?

To be honest it was more frustration followed by relief for the most part. The joy wasn't felt until the end when everything finally worked and reviewing the content using "inspect". Joy came with understanding that what I had written had made sense and felt like we were finally speaking the language.

If HTML and CSS were animals, which animals do you think they would be? Why?

HTML would be a chicken and CSS would be a peacock. The people will look at the chicken and be able to say that its a bird, does very little but it does all the things a bird should do. Then there's the peacock, while it is most definitely a bird, it a pretty one that not only looks nice but can fly better than a chicken can.