July has come and gone!
It’s felt both quick and slow. I have learned a LOT of python fundamentals in cs101 and cs253. I started (and stopped) learning data structures and algorithms because the algos were not sinking in very much. I’m hoping that they will ‘take’ a bit better after I have some more time to contemplate them and I have more fundamentals under my belt. After the dust has settled I have studied every damn day! I studied on average 3h per night / 20h per week / 88h total.
I have more on my to do list than I did when I started the month but I think that is a good thing. I heard someone on “Talk python to me” say that everyone learning something new starts out thinking that they know nothing, then moves to thinking that they know everything, and then finally moves back to knowing how much they have left to learn. I’m far from pretending to know much, but I’m starting to build an impressive list of things I want to learn!
I’ve been to two meetups, done 14 blog posts (and updated my study log almost every day) and put two projects up on github. I’m furthering my understanding of recursion and OOP. cs253 is really helping open my eyes to the benefits of web-based applications as well. Oh yeah – as a buzzer beater to the month I also emailed the local meetup organizer to ask if I could give a presentation(!) He has said twice that they want to have presenters of all skill levels, so if nothing else it may remind experienced coders how far they have come.
Here’s my typing test: I don’t think that number is statistically significant compared to last month (2 wpm higher), but I feel slightly more comfortable typing correctly. I’m still super error prone on all of my right hand brackets and punctuation. That makes coding pretty frustrating. Thankfully my mind is not THAT much faster than my typing, so I get by.
Off the top of my head: I hope that next month I will learn more about databases, finish cs253, get more comfortable with recursion so that I can pick back up on algorithms, and possibly get started on django. All of those goals could get changed by the end of the day, but at least I have a plan to change now!