This is the mantra I have living by for the last month, such a simple 4 words but has helped me allot. So what does it mean? Basically this is what I have been following for how to keep motivation and going to ensure I am and will make progress with this.
First it just started out as doing 20-40min a day and it was feeling great and then moved on to an hour and then 2 hours and next thing I know I'm doing close to 4 hours a day! Its been great and stressful at the same time but things are finally starting to click I feel and its exciting.
So there is allot to unpack here on what has gone on since the last post as my path changed multiple times since my original plans. The consistent though is python is my language of choice and keeping up that daily streak. Originally I started off of using just the daily courses on Replit for the 100 Days of Python, it was going good at first and I was having fun for the first week till the learning curve took a very steep change. I felt that the videos were much shorter for each lesson and they were moving faster than either I can at this point in my life or possibly was meant for someone who was already familiar with coding. I felt that the guy in the video was starting to be very pretentious the longer I went.
So I stuck with it as I didn't want to quit on it just yet but I started to find that just depending on one place at a time was not going to cut it for me. So I started to do the python lessons on freecodecamp, the first one that was in the list was Scientific Computing with Python. It started out at a learners pace but jumped quickly very quickly and was starting to confuse me more than help the further I went in here as well. I continued on this with Replit and freecodecamp for another week doing about an hour a day, I felt I was not catching on as fast as the information was being feed to me and was getting increasingly frustrated.
So with that said I decided to upgrade up to the 100 days of coding bootcamp with Angela Yu on udemy, I looked into it more and read more and more reviews from happy people who were able to get into it and made great progress. At that time I saw the course was at $104 and just was not wanting to drop that much on it after seeing it on sale recently. Researched a bit and found that udemy has sales every week and if I just waited it would be worth it. Sure enough I checked the next morning and it was down to $20, I pulled the trigger and got started that day.
I went through Day one and was feeling great, the information she provided was very well put and provided great examples and exercises to do that really got me happy in the path again. End of the day there was a project to , day one project was a band name generator simple one now looking back but was fun.
#1. Create a greeting for your program.
print("Welcome to the band name Gernerator")
#2. Ask the user for the city that they grew up in.
city = input("What City Did you Grow up in?\n ")
#3. Ask the user for the name of a pet.
pet = input("What is the name of your pet?\n ")
#4. Combine the name of their city and pet and show them their band name.
print("Your band name could be " + city + " " + pet)
#5. Make sure the input cursor shows on a new line:She had a great motivational video at the end to encourage keep pushing doing at least an hour a day. Left off feeling great at that point and then realized that I had not done my replit and moved back over to it for the day to do that days worth of the 100 days and felt getting frustrated again as it was going back to a style that was not working for me but I didn't want to give up. I found myself having to look at the solution more often than not to actually complete the challenge of the day and basically not really understanding it all. But I keeping up the streak no matter what and did not want to seem of any failure.
So moving on the next day I continued with the udemy class and worked on Day 2, was defiantly a step up from the previous day but again she had great explanations and exercises but found myself struggling more than the previous day. The end of the day project this time was a Tip calculator, was more challenging than the previous day. Now I be the first one to admit I suck at math so projects that were more based on the math of it had me more confused with trying to grasp the new concepts with python but i pushed through it and put it together with little to no peaking at solution.
#If the bill was $150.00, split between 5 people, with 12% tip.
#Each person should pay (150.00 / 5) * 1.12 = 33.6
#Format the result to 2 decimal places = 33.60
#Tip: There are 2 ways to round a number. You might have to do some Googling to solve this.💪
#Write your code below this line 👇
print("Welcome to the tip calculator.")
print()
bill = float(input("What was the total bill? $")) # this will gather the input from the user and convert it to a float
tip = int(input("What percentage tip would you like to give? 10, 12, or 15? ")) # this will gather the input from the user and convert it to an int
people = int(input("How many people to split the bill? ")) # this will gather the input from the user and convert it to an int
tip_percent = tip / 100 # this will divide the input by 100
total_tip = bill * tip_percent # this will multiply the bill by the tip
total_bill = bill + total_tip # this will add the bill and the tip
bill_per_person = total_bill / people # this will divide the total bill by the number of people
final_amount = round(bill_per_person, 2) # this will round the number to 2 decimal places
print(f"Each person should pay: ${final_amount:.2f}") # this will print the result using an f-string which will include the variables inside the string as long as they are in curly brackets and .2f will format the number to 2 decimal places.Ended the day again with doing the days challenge with replit and it was more of the same, frustration and disappointment, disappointment in myself more at that time feeling like I should be getting it more at this point and must not be focusing enough or pushing myself enough.
Pushing on though continued the next day 3 in the udemy class, it felted ramped up even higher than the previous point at that time and I found myself struggling more on the exercises and then ultimately the project I found myself having to copy most of it from the solution without trying to break it down myself , but I did my best to leave comments to try and help me break down what the code was doing and hopefully grasping something from it. The project that day was a Treasure Island Game.
print('''
*******************************************************************************
| | | |
_________|________________.=""_;=.______________|_____________________|_______
| | ,-"_,="" `"=.| |
|___________________|__"=._o`"-._ `"=.______________|___________________
| `"=._o`"=._ _`"=._ |
_________|_____________________:=._o "=._."_.-="'"=.__________________|_______
| | __.--" , ; `"=._o." ,-"""-._ ". |
|___________________|_._" ,. .` ` `` , `"-._"-._ ". '__|___________________
| |o`"=._` , "` `; .". , "-._"-._; ; |
_________|___________| ;`-.o`"=._; ." ` '`."\` . "-._ /_______________|_______
| | |o; `"-.o`"=._`` '` " ,__.--o; |
|___________________|_| ; (#) `-.o `"=.`_.--"_o.-; ;___|___________________
____/______/______/___|o;._ " `".o|o_.--" ;o;____/______/______/____
/______/______/______/_"=._o--._ ; | ; ; ;/______/______/______/_
____/______/______/______/__"=._o--._ ;o|o; _._;o;____/______/______/____
/______/______/______/______/____"=._o._; | ;_.--"o.--"_/______/______/______/_
____/______/______/______/______/_____"=.o|o_.--""___/______/______/______/____
/______/______/______/______/______/______/______/______/______/______/_____ /
*******************************************************************************
''')
print("Welcome to Treasure Island.")
print("Your mission is to find the treasure.")
#https://www.draw.io/?lightbox=1&highlight=0000ff&edit=_blank&layers=1&nav=1&title=Treasure%20Island%20Conditional.drawio#Uhttps%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Fuc%3Fid%3D1oDe4ehjWZipYRsVfeAx2HyB7LCQ8_Fvi%26export%3Ddownload
#Write your code below this line 👇
step1 = input(
"You are at a crossroad. Where do you want to go? Type 'left' or 'right'.\n"
).lower()
if step1 == "left":
step2 = input(
"You have come to a lake. There is an island in the middle of the lake.\n"
"Type 'wait' to wait for a boat. Type 'swim' to swim across.\n").lower(
)
if step2 == "wait":
step3 = input(
"You arrive at the island unharmed. There is a house with 3 doors.\n"
"One red, one yellow and one blue. Which colour do you choose?\n"
).lower()
if step3 == "red":
print("It's a room full of fire. Game Over.")
elif step3 == "yellow":
print("You found the treasure! You Win!")
elif step3 == "blue":
print("You enter a room of beasts. Game Over.")
else:
print("You chose a door that doesn't exist. Game Over.")
else:
print("You get attacked by an angry trout. Game Over.")
else:
print("You fell into a hole. Game Over.")So left that day feeling upset with myself and of course I continued the replit next day challenge and left feeling ultimately crushed again. Wash rinse repeat, this was the definition of insanity it was feeling like.
But I pushed on as I just knew if I continued to push it would click and it would all make sense. So I jumped into Day 4 on the udemy class and was feeling crushed, I was taking forever to do what seemed as simple exercises the day before and grasping everything but today I felt like we things were just moving to fast for me. the class was estimated time for 1hr 20min that day but it ended up taking me almost 4 hours that day to complete it. I ended the day breaking down as I could not do the challenge at all and ended up just copy and pasting it in and again trying to understand it with making comments but I feel that I wasn't understand what I was writing. The project for that day was Rock Paper Scissors.
rock = '''
_______
---' ____)
(_____)
(_____)
(____)
---.__(___)
'''
paper = '''
_______
---' ____)____
______)
_______)
_______)
---.__________)
'''
scissors = '''
_______
---' ____)____
______)
__________)
(____)
---.__(___)
'''
#Write your code below this line 👇
import random # this imports the random module
game_images = [rock, paper, scissors] # this creates a list of game images
user_choice = int(input("What do you choose? Type 0 for Rock, 1 for Paper or 2 for Scissors.\n")) # this gets the user's choice and converts it to an integer
if user_choice >= 3 or user_choice < 0: # this checks if the user's choice is not between 0 and 2
print("Incorrect number, you lose!") # this prints if the user's choice is not between 0 and 2
else:
print(game_images[user_choice]) # this prints the image of the user's choice
computer_choice = random.randint(0, 2) # this generates a random number between 0 and 2
print("Computer chose:")
print(game_images[computer_choice]) # this prints the image of the computer's choice
if user_choice == 0 and computer_choice == 2: # this checks if the user wins
print("You win!")
elif computer_choice == 0 and user_choice == 2: # this checks if the computer wins
print("You lose")
elif computer_choice > user_choice: # this checks if the computer wins
print("You lose")
elif user_choice > computer_choice: # this checks if the user wins
print("You win!")
elif computer_choice == user_choice: # this checks if it's a draw
print("It's a draw")And to make matters worse I ended the day off again with doing the replit challenge for that day and really just crushed me for the day.
Well I wasn't sure what to do at that point as I felt I had tried allot of what I had planned to do and it was failing for me , I was feeling like maybe it would never click and maybe this just wasn't for me. That night I looked at apps in the app store on my phone seeing if maybe there was something that could help me bridge the gap and study. I found one called sololearn that seemed to have good reviews and looked like a good one to start. Right away I was having a good start that night re-hashing the basics that I remember and enjoying it. I signed up for the trial on the pro subscription to make sure I would have infinite hearts as I could tell I would hate the wait time on heart refills which could take up to 24hours to get back the full amount which is 5. I sent myself the link to work on it on my computer in the morning and went to sleep hopeful.
Next day I didn't have as much time as the days before and knew I was only going to get in about 30-40min in of learning that day. So I figured I would get the frustrating replit part out of the way first and of course it ended up confusing me more than anything but i shrugged it off and went on the the sololearn. It is allot of answering multiple choice question and a little bit of actual entering code but I was feeling good I was grasping it and was moving my way through the material. I found it was going at the pace that was working better for me where it went over things often and not once or twice and never again and expect you to know it. Ended it as a good day even though I didn't get to Day 5 of the udemy class which I was bummed about missing.
Fast forward to a few hours later, I was trying to clip my dogs nails and like normal she would never let me do it. I thought I would do like a kid and maybe if she saw me fake clipping my nails with them she would be ok. Well boy did that backfire, I ended up snipping the tip of my finger off with these dog nail clippers. Wow did it hurt like hell! It was not as bad as it sounds at first as it was before the nail and was basically the tip of skin on my finger, still none the less it was very painful. After about 20-30min it would not stop bleeding so I had to go to urgent care to get it checked out. Turned out that the angle it was cut at was very hard for it to clot which is why it hadn't stopped bleeding, they had to cauterize the tip of my finger to get it to stop bleeding. They let me know I should not put any pressure on it for several days or more. Now I was really bummed as I was worried that I was going to break the chain. That I would not be able to continue to code every day and that I was worried I would loose motivation. The only thing I knew is that the dog would NEVER let me cut her nails now.
The next day I pushed forward but knew I would not be able to type at all, thankfully the new sololearn I started was allot of multiple choice questions and I was able to push through more still and and still do about an hour a day. I even started to do some of the classes on the W3Schools site which has a very large library of classes and looks like a path to official certifications (for a price of course but that's ok I have accepted that). It was allot of reading and reviewing things there but it was still very helpful and I felt with the was the sololearn app was working with me on my pace and this new resource with W3Schools it was going to be good.
So I pushed each day with those 2 for at least an hour a day and was feeling better about myself and my learning and was grasping more and more. The end of the day was still a bummer with the replit challenges for the day but that story is coming to an end soon.
So to save some time here after a week of this I was getting it more and more but still feeling very frustrated with the replit challenges and was not getting it at all. So I decided that pride in a number on a site that was not helping me to continue each day was pointless. I stopped doing the replit challenges and kept up with the multiple things that were working for me.
I found that in the end I cant just depend on self teaching myself with one resource only and understanding it all from that. I eventually found that sololearn is good starting place to learn but should in no way be the only resource and should be a starting point mainly as by their courses. With that said I wanted to branch out and start a new resource as well, I ended up starting the classes on mimo and this is really when things started to click for me. I don't know if its their classes specifically or all the repetitiveness that had allowed me to grasp it better with retention or a mix of both but I was happy. I was grasping it I was moving along at a pace that was better for me and knew this was going to work.
I have not gone back to the udemy classes yet but my finger is fully healed and have been able to type at my normal pace again for the last several days. And now that I feel I have hit that "it clicked" moment I don't think it will be as hard for me but I still have that anxiety about what it will be like. My plan is to start again with it this Monday and to go back a day or two and work on the projects again and see how it is for me now. I know I cant learn it all from watching and need to actually use it which I found that the projects in mimo were allowing me to do. I did sign up for their max program which offered some professional certificates and it has live classes so it seems like a good idea.
So to wrap things up with where I started it, I don't think I would have made it this far without having the "Don't Break The Chain" mantra. It really helped me push towards something that is hard for me sometimes to stay focused on one thing at a time. But when I feel it on the line as I cannot fail, having the plan to not break the chain has been working for me. This may not work for everyone but this has been a very huge change for me, I have even started using it in other things around the house to keep up the motivation.
Thanks for reading.