E1: UI Basics Technical Essay

27 Jan 2023

At first, I was really struggling with BrowserHistory1. I could not get the http-server in my repo directory to work properly, I kept getting a module error and the server would fail to load in my browser. I also had this problem for step 5 of Lab #1. I struggled trying to figure out how to get the http server to work, but I eventually had to give up. After talking to one of my friends in the class, they were able to teach me how they adapted to the same issue. Essentially, instead of creating the http server, we downloaded the ‘live server’ extension and used that to directly open the file in the browser. I would say that I definitely learned how to navigate around VS Code much better after this exercise, especially after trying to click on anything to solve my issue. I completed BrowserHistory1 in 3 long attempts. I probably took over two hours on the first attempt and I used attempt 2 to figure out the code before watching the example video. My final attempt took me about 18 minutes, so I made it in Av. The other two WODs were definitely much easier for me. They took 2 attempts each and I finished both in Rx. For BrowserHistory2, I used my first attempt to figure out the code that would be needed. Then, I marked any code that I did not understand how to do and watched the video to learn how to do it. I had an especially hard time with the linking and first font formatting for this WOD, but I gave a good stab at it for my first attempt and learned how to do it for my second attempt. I learned a lot about the VS Code intellisense in this WOD and it came in handy. For BrowserHistory3, I had a hard time with reformatting the navigation bar. I was probably DNF on my first attempt because of this, but it was really because I was overthinking it and making it more complicated than it needed to be. I used the same 2 attempt method as BrowserHistory2 and was able to learn the navigation bar code from the video. I learned about padding in this WOD which I think is a neat concept. My first piece of advice would be to have the proper resources pulled up while doing the first attempt like having the CSS Beginner Tutorial up for BrowserHistory2. It definitely helps with the temptation of just watching the video to get the answer. If you make it easy for yourself to find the answer on your own, you will be more likely to. My second piece of advice is to not try to make the first attempt perfect, I definitely wasted time doing this. I would suggest writing out the code you can figure out, take a strong guess at what you do not know, and then watch the video to figure out the right answer. My last piece of advice is to not overthink like I did. I wasted probably a good 3 hours of my life being fixated on my issue from BrowserHistory1 and other small issues. Overthinking did not help me figure out the solution. Taking a break and asking for help did the trick.