What I learned after pair programming every day for 3 months while using HTML & CSS…
Published: 2020-02-15 02:59:26

Pair programming is a software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation or long distance-like from different parts of the world in their own laptop/computer, connected to the internet using programs like Zoom or Hangsout from Google, to communicate and interchange ideas and knowledge interchanging roles from Navigator to Driver and Driver to Navigator, so in that way, both parties interfere to create the code needed to make the best presentable code publishing it on Github, through the use of Git and Github Pair Programming works in a harmonious manner, so that way the driver, writes code while the navigator observes and reviews each line of code as it is typed in, and vice-versa when they rotate. The two programmers switch roles frequently, every 30 mins at least.
Today I will describe my own experience as Pair Programmer in Microverse, I have been working so far with coding Partners from different parts of the world, from Latin America to Africa, from Africa to center America, from Center America to Europe and the experience keeps growing going by through the studies in my carrier field at Microverse. I have met interesting friends from all over the world, and so my last coding Partner was a lady of around her 50ish years old who was surprisingly awesome in coding and programming as well as a good teacher when I needed some help while being in the driver’s seat, she always took the time a day to explain certain concepts that I wasn’t so familiar with while we were doing Navigator and Driver, my coding partner was Ukranian, and we spoke in English through our daily work, we learned a lot while using Pair Programming, and switching roles constantly to build some websites using HTML and CSS schemes and concepts, applying our skills and knowledge in projects our school has in curriculum. So my coding Partner and I, have done many projects through our time coding using HTML and CSS, we have learned to clone important websites, as we cloned homepages of popular companies including Youtube, Mint.com, New York Times, Apple, Newsweek and TheNextWeb. We learned a lot along the time working together, for what discipline and consistency are important to become a highly-skilled web developer or software engineer while doing a Pair Programming type of work, also the soft skills each of us has improved through or daily work. Having a reliable coding partner helps you when it comes to build those two traits and also finish a code in less time than you would do it alone, after all, two heads think better than one, right?
General concepts YOU will need to code with HTML and CSS with your coding Partner…
Somethings my coding Partner and I had to learn along the way were concepts that helped us build a website from scratch, first of all, you have to know that to build a website you don’t really need to know many languages or start with an advanced bast knowledge of programming, you only need to use common HTML tags such as for Headings (h1-h6), links (<a>), images (<img>), unordered lists (<ul> with <li> inside), divs and spans. In addition <header>, <nav>, <main>, <section>, <aside>, <article> and <footer>, as well to learn how to embed a video or a picture, which is simple because if you need to embed a video YOUTUBE does it for you when you press the “share” button, and they give you embedded option. There are lots of other tags that are required in certain situations but I only included those that are commonly utilized and some semantics to properly organize the order of the tags and where and when to use the tags. As for what you need to know of CSS, I would say, the best you can do is start by learning how to do style text (font properties), links (text-decoration mostly), tweak dimension and position of elements (width, margin, padding, float, position) and style backgrounds (background-image and background-color). CSS transitions and animations are also nowadays found everywhere on most sites, and learning them wouldn’t be wasted time since you might want to use them constantly for a better decoration of your webpage. I also would say the most important thing to learn after mastering all the other above concepts is to learn is Flexbox and Grid, and an easy way to do so is using games like Flexbox Froggy and Grid Garden which makes your learning experience easy and fun.
And it isn’t really a hard task if you are really committed to learn and become a programmer and launch your full-stack web development carrier as a freelancer.
So important to make clear, you don’t need to be a coding ninja to code at all when you have a coding partner and you can find one, studying at Microverse, as I do.
If anything I could say this concept and the knowledge you need to build sites with HTML and CSS can be found in many websites that teach programming courses for free like The Odin Project, FreeCodeCamp, and W3schools between others, there’s also courses from sites like Code Academy and Udemy academy, boot camps like the one I am assisting to Microverse, and youtube videos that explain how to code with different languages, so you can learn coding on your own but the learning pace is not as fast as learning with a coding partner, and I’m sure of that since I have been there, done that, and choose Pair Programming as the best option to learn to code effectively and responsibly. So if you also want to learn to code really fast, I recommend Pair Programming as a top option in your list. It might come in handy for you, and not to do propaganda but Microverse has great experience in it since the school merely works through long-distance pair programming with students from different places in the world, so you can be meeting acquaintances from the commodity of your computer without leaving home, and they all have a common interest, “to learn to code” so it comes in handy for when you have any questions you can ask your peers and solve your doubts. So try Microverse out for an easy way to find your own crew of developer friends with who to do pair programming with, and be part of our interesting Bootcamp experience, and as a student I recommend it. And if it’s your first time coding sign up for the pre-course where you’ll learn “FOR FREE” while you study, and pay later on an amount of 15% monthly of your salary until you finish paying a 15k but ONLY if you work as a developer and ONLY if you get a job of minimum 1k a month that Microverse that brings you Coaches to help you find a job, so you can learn web development and software engineering easily and for free from your comfy home, and with a mentor, and lots of new friend’s you’ll meet in school. If you’re an advanced learner (you are comfortable with some JavaScript or any other programming language) then I would recommend the Fast Track Program (you will only pay once you finish the program and find a remote software engineering job of minimum 1k U$D). Anyway is the easiest form to experience the full potential of Pair Programming with good training experience, and a partner from another country who will help you through.
Tips for Mastering HTML/CSS fast
Start By Cloning Sites
Starting your web development journey as a beginner, you will have to eventually master HTML and CSS for a while after reading theory, you will want to apply your knowledge in a practical way, and if you do this alone it might take a few weeks or even months before you could jumpstart your carrier, and using your programming skills properly, but with a coding partner it takes less time, is more effective, and both of you learn along the way, the best way to do so is to practice building sites that already exist, how so? well, Short answer — clone existing sites, that’s how we do in Microverse the Remote School for programmers.
Frameworks and Libraries Give Us CSS ADVANTAGES
FlexBox and CSS Grid; Having basic skills in those two will already allow you to make incredible looking web pages. In addition to this, libraries such as Bootstrap, Foundation, and Semantic-UI provide styling that is ready to link to your CSS files (and JavaScript/jQuery libraries), understanding grid systems and classes is the perfect way to do things fast and easy.
So as a conclusion I would say learning programming from the basic languages of HTML and CSS comes in handy if your goal is to become a software developer and a full-stack software engineer, is easy to do when you have a coding partner to work with, so submitting to a school like Microverse is the smartest approach to that beautiful future as successful programmer.