Sink or Swim
Published: 2020-05-25 19:14:28

(Is my mic on? Oh alright, let's start) Pay no mind to the dramatic title(lol). For the better part of two weeks, I've been on a learning course on progate.com, sponsored by DevCareers and a host of other benevolent senior developers (bless their hearts). I chose the .NodeJS  path which basically means learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript before actually moving on to NodeJS.

Learning had been going on quite well (pretty awesome actually) until a few days ago, and BOOM! one of the facilitators from Devcareers says it's time to test our skills (scary shit because hello, I'm a newbie). A Figma design was sent to everyone of us and when I got mine, I was one hundred percent sure there was a mistake somewhere because my grasp of HTML and CSS wasn't as firm as I'd have loved it to be to even consider taking on a project of such magnitude. I sent him a message in a bid to make him understand that I was a newbie and this task was clearly an impossible one for me and his response was "I know, give it a shot" (Errrrmm, you say what now?!). 

So there I was, a newbie, equipped only with my passion and a few (hilariously basic) HTML and CSS skills AND a deadline to meet(which was in three days by the way). I spent the first day staring at my laptop screen and moving the cursor repeatedly over the Figma image like that was supposed to magically invoke a flood of ideas into my otherwise empty head; I rang up a fellow student that is by far a more experienced developer than I am only to find out he was just as blank as I was. We talked however, glossed over a few ideas (him more than me, obviously), and in all honesty, up until this very second, I still have no idea how I started. The next 2 days were the most tedious days I've faced as a web developer; I found myself spending long stretches of hours coding and trying to figure out how to position the images. A lot of these hours was spent on stack overflow, W3schools, MDN web doc pages and Zoom calls with friends to figure stuff out. Fast-forward to Sunday, I was surprisingly halfway through the project but sadly, it was already past the deadline. I messaged the facilitator in disappointment and told him I couldn't finish the project but I had hosted the page and promised to complete it. He commended my efforts which was a really big deal for me (Yay! Happy endings do exist).  

From the start of the project, I knew I was way in over my head but what I lacked in programming skills, I made up for with a passion so intense.  I've sat back to assess what I knew before I started and what I've learnt in the last two days and one thing is for sure, I have definitely added to my repertoire of coding abilities. The adrenaline rush coupled with the sleepless nights was totally worth it and as I stare at my very beautiful yet unresponsive web-page like a proud dad, I just want to say to newbies like myself out there, the only way to learn to code is to always code and (for me) a sprinkle of deadlines (just to make things interesting) hence the title "sink or swim". The vast ocean of web development does prove treacherous at times and would most likely present me with more challenges but again I say, "BRING IT ON!"