While learning web development you may have come across classes and IDs. When you type out some HTML and use these classes and IDs you might notice that they both do the same thing when you go to style it in a CSS file. You might be able to use classes and IDs interchangebly on a simple website with only a few div containers, but when you are working with a bigger website, the browser might not be so kind as to let you use them any way you want. So what is the difference between a class and and ID, and what are the best practices in using them?

Having been given the task of self-evaluation and identifying my personal values, I quickly looked up the recommended Myers Briggs test. After looking through a few of them, I discovered a website called 16personalities.com. This website gives a free assessment of what your personality is like within the Myers Briggs guidelines. So I took the test and got some revealing answers.

This is a short reflection on things to think about as I progress through my journey into programming. I am going to outline some of my long term goals and potential career pathways, soft skills that I would like to develop during my studies, my strengths and limitations and my commitment to seeing my studies through. I will also describe how I will seek help when I need it as this is something that I find to be a weakness of mine.

Life would be a lot easier if emotions were taken out of a lot of situations, but life just wouldn’t be as fun if emotions were taken away. This is why we need to be able to learn about and understand our emotions and Emotional Intelligence. By doing so we will be able to enjoy life a little more and also further ourselves in whatever goal or target that we have set for ourselves.

Webpages are made up of a whole lot of elements. HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language can be thought of like a house. It is the structure, the foundation. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is like the decorative elements of the house like the painting, door style, furniture etc. Without the house you can’t decorate it and without the decorative elements your house will be empty and bland. Then there is Javascript. Continuing with the house analogy you can think of it like the electrical wiring and plumbing, it's there hidden but it is vital for living in the house and allows you to interact with lights and the shower.

Your parents always tell you, “you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it.” A lot of people think it to be cheesy or just that their parents are supportive because, well, they’re your parents, that’s what they should be doing. Well, the saying is true and thanks to research and a deeper understanding into the complexities of the human mind, a person can do anything as long as they try, try, and try again. This is the underlying idea behind neuroplasticity and the growth mindset.

There are a lot of times when I get blocked by a simple problem and the solution is usually forgetting a simple bracket, or forgetting a bit of syntax. An example of a problem is when during the Javascript Olympics challenge that was given to me, I mistyped a word and was not passing the test. I wracked my brain for 30 minutes and then it hit me, I had mistyped a word. The thing that worked for me was to use the rubber ducky method, which is to talk through the code to figure out issues like this one I had. Through doing this I learned that there will be times when the code will not work, and the best way to fix the issue is to stop, walk through the code and the problem will seem trivial.

Now that the foundations portion of studying with Enspiral Dev Academy has finished I spent some time looking back and reflecting on my learning journey. Emphasis was placed on the core curriculum as it is a unique aspect of learning at EDA.