The Benefits of Past Projects

 A Personal Code Library

I'm currently in the middle of the first project in The Odin Project's JavaScript Course. One of the things that I've been realizing as I've built a handful of projects is that I can reference code I've written before. This gives me a starting point for solving novel, but similar, problems that existed in previous projects. Unlike college, self-plagiarism is encouraged in this industry because there's no good arguments for working from scratch on each and every new project you come across in the programming world. It would just be a waste of time and energy. So, like a bad college student and a good programmer, I copy and paste code from previous projects.

One Big Problem?

Another aspect of coding that has stuck out to me recently is the reality that a large project is just a the process of solving a handful (or a lot!) of small, interconnected problems. In other words, big problems are rather modular, and you build the different parts to interact with one another to make the whole thing work together in the end. This makes for an interesting process as a larger project is built. You find the starting point, and then build each element on top of that. Much like building a house, you tend to start with the foundation, then add the framing, and finish with the drywall and paint. Although, coding does allow for more flexibility where you can do things like the styling (CSS) at any point. This makes larger projects more enjoyable as you can move on to another section of the code if you run into an issue in one specific place. Sometimes, taking a break from one problem offers you the perspective you need to then understand a better approach an hour or a day later. 

The Time Left

It feels like there is a distant drum beat denoting the coming of the new year. I only have 15 weeks 4 days before January 1st, 2021 is upon us! It felt like I had a lot of time when I started this blog, but now it feels like I almost have no time at all to learn as much as possible before I start looking at applying for my first front-end web developer position! It's exciting and rather terrifying. Let's keep this momentum going!

 

Tim David

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