Day 2: More CSS

Day 2 started off with me started off with lecture from Michael Choi. He was walking us through how to scale a web app so that we have at least a high level of understanding. With web application there are 3 potential bottlenecks: the server, the database, or the interpreter. He went one to explain how people deal with each type of bottleneck so that users requesting data receive their information quickly. He made a brief remark about the beauty of node.js and how great it serves data. I am really really excited to learn and gain a really strong understanding of it. Furthermore he started talking to us a little about git version control and how to add changes and commit then to our local repository.

Then the day continued with another CSS project in which we have to look at a webpage and re-create it from scratch. Here's an example:

The webpage we are re-creating is on the right, while my code that's rendered on the browser is displayed on the right. The important thing here really is to minimize the about of HTML. Let HTML simply be the content and let CSS do its job by styling it.

I was having a conversation with some classmates about how hectic CSS can be. How you can take so much time to make such a small but crucial adjustment. Michael Choi was pointing out how that it's not so bad when you get to write the CSS from scratch. It's really bad when you're inheriting someone's code where it could span thousands of line. Sometimes you change one line of CSS and the whole layout is destroyed. That's why he emphasizes elegant code so much. You don't want to become one of those programmers that write terrible code that makes another programmer's job a nightmare.

I really feel the improvement that's coming with repetition. Before I really didn't understand what was going on when I saw the words: inline, inline-block, and block. But now I have a clear understanding. I understand alignment and really understand the process in which a browser processes a source code.

Once again most of the students left the Dojo at around 7pm. One thing to note is that the Dojo doesn't necessarily have high standards for accepting students and beginners are welcome into the programs. When the 4 o'clock algorithm class commenced, there were many students that understood or already knew how to write the algorithms and there were some that were looking at code for the first time.

I took it upon myself to help out a newbie coder who was also staying late with me so that he could understand what was going on in an array when we were looping through a for-loop. The function was storing values in the Fibonacci sequence. At first when he was looping through the function, he had difficulty understanding the difference between variables and indexes but after each subsequence one he was calculating and assigning quicker and quicker. It was really rewarding watching the lightbulb go off on his head when he was said, "This is just like the Fibonacci sequence!". To which I replied, "Yes! This is exactly the Fibonacci sequence!" Moments like that are really why I like to teach people. It's quite a rewarding experience for both parties. Because I know how to teach a concept, I feel like I've mastered it.

Now it's time to sleep and get some good rest before another 12+ hour day at the Dojo. I'm really pumped to make more progress as we continue this journey. There's a sense of comraderie that's for