Millennial Movies
“Everything the light touches is our Kingdom.”
“Wow..and this will all be mine?… everything the light touches…”
“What about that shadowy place?”
(The Lion King)
Lion King was one of four VHS tapes I owned growing up. I love Simba’s excitement and wonder as he looks out over his kingdom with Mufasa. It aptly encompasses my experience with coding so far. I’m still really excited. I consider it with wonder.
Simba is really curious about the shadowy place. And, like Simba, I’m intensely curious, too. I’m pretty sure the shadowy place is (currently) JavaScript. I’m still working toward accepting not knowing and not being right immediately. I am really fortunate that academics almost always came easy to me. However, it puts me in this position where I rather expect to “get it” the first time. That’s why JavaScript is the shadowy place — it’s unknown and not easy to know. Part of me thinks that if I could go back and change something, I’d learn more about JavaScript before taking this course, so it wouldn’t be so unknown and it might be easier. But that misses the point, I think. There may always be things in this field that I don’t get the first time. If I could magically change my fear and frustration into persistence, I’d take that. As it is, I’ll focus continue to approach it all with curiosity, and know that that will move me toward my goal of being a better learner.
“They’re in the computer?”
(~Hansel, Zoolander)
The Document Object Model (DOM) is an interface that allows everyone to communicate using HTML. I imagine it a little bit like the file structure in my computer. I understand the files in my computer, unlike Hansel, because I have experience with the graphic interface that “shows” me “where” my files are (oh those neatly organized blue folders, sigh). Only, we don’t use the DOM with a graphic representation. I you draw it out, it would be a bit like the folder structure on my laptop, with each of the folders and files as an “object” in the DOM.
“Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty-bitty living space.”
(~Genie, Aladdin)
This is a bit what coding a website to be responsive feels like to me. It starts with a website the way you see it on a laptop. Then you squish everything together and hide all the extras to be viewed on a phone. A mobile first strategy requires you to think about the essentials, build them to be easily accessible on a small screen, and build up and out from there. I do not have a strong opinion about which way is best, but certainly as more and more people (most?) access the internet through mobile devices, accessibility from a mobile device needs to be a primary consideration for most sites.
(The Matrix)
I am not a thinking-in-pictures type of person. One would assume that after working with individuals with autism for nearly two decades, I’d have a better idea of how to think in pictures. Nope. Where things are in space is important to how I conceptualize and remember them, though. For example, I’ll remember a restaurant was on the southeast corner of the street, we sat kitty-corner to one another, and I was facing the door. (My husband, on the other hand, will remember that we had calamari with an aioli instead of a marinara.)
So what coding “looks like” in my mind is the way I’ve set up my computer. My VS Code is along the bottom half of my screen with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript open left to right. The website that I’m working on is open in the upper right corner of my screen. The dev tools and/ or class video and/ or assignment is open in the upper left of my screen. Everything happens from left to right. HTML is on the left, gets modified by CSS or JavaScript on the right. Work is done on the left and sent off to appear on the right. When I’m at my desk with the extra monitor, it’s almost as if the extra monitor is the rest of the internet. That’s where not only my current website is open, but where I keep all the tabs of things that I’m researching open.
“Miss Rhode Island, please describe your idea of a perfect date.”
“That’s a tough one. I’d have to say April 25th. Because it’s not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket.”
(Miss Congeniality)
365 days from now I imagine I’ll be working in this same space. I love my home office. It has a great color scheme and lots of pictures I enjoy. I imagine there will be fewer toys/ games/prizes in my closet, as I won’t be seeing clients anymore. The curtains that enclose the closet to cover it are finally hemmed high enough that my territorial cat won’t pee on them.
For real, though, I’ve never been very good at imagining the future. I just saw a Senior Developer position posted at Rethink First (a company for which I worked as a Director of Professional services, helping school districts to implement their product and also helping to design their Behavior Assessment tool). It would be awesome to work for that company again, in a completely different role, but still utilizing my knowledge of Applied Behavior Analysis. Obviously, a senior developer position requires several years of experience. So, in a year, I hope to be in a developer role that works toward that. I just want something where I can get my foot in the door and get some high quality experience.