This last Saturday was the jQuery workshop run by my local branch of Ladies Learning Code (LLC). I can honestly say I got out of it what I wanted, namely an introduction to the relationship between JavaScript and jQuery and some real-world examples of how they’re applied. Nevertheless, I’m left ambivalent
To be perfectly clear right out the gate, this is by no means a reflection on Ladies Learning Code, its fantastic organizers, the instructor or the mentors. They all lived up to the high standard I’ve come to expect from the organization, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve committed to mentoring at the upcoming CSS and WordPress workshops. In fact, I would like to give a shout-out to Bree for all her hard work behind the scenes, Kim for handling her first time in the instructor’s chair with confidence and grace, and Susan for her personable and knowledgeable mentoring.
The ambivalence comes from being in that funny in-between as a learner. I’m not exactly a novice, but hardly experienced. I came in already knowing programming fundamentals – variables, loops, objects, methods and so forth – which meant that large parts of workshop was a retread for me. Rather than learning the concepts from scratch, I used my participation to 1) deconstruct how the lesson plan broke them down and built on them (smoothly with little wasted space or time – bravo!), and 2) annotating the guided changes to the learner package web page with my own observations connecting LLC’s approach to that found in Eloquent JavaScript.
This wasn’t particularly a surprise; I knew going in that this workshop is geared toward learners who don’t have prior experience with programming or JavaScript. Nor do I regard it as a drawback. There is enormous value in having widely-accessible beginner-friendly sessions like this; my appreciation for it is a large part of why I’ve chosen to volunteer as a mentor wherever I can of late.
In terms of my own learning, I wanted to come out with some reinforcement of what I’m already learning. I can honestly say I’ve achieved that. I’m more confident that I’ve made the right choice in how I’ve approached JavaScript this time around, and that I can start working with it on a web development level without getting bogged down as badly as I did the first time around, with my overly ambitious game idea.
All in all, I gained a better idea of how the moving pieces on a website with JavaScript work in relation to the CSS and HTML, and of the types of things JavaScript and jQuery are commonly used for. It revealed for me that a few things I’d thought were straight-up advanced CSS tricks are actually some pretty simple jQuery, and that jQuery also streamlines implementing some pretty neat interactivity features, things that I’m now eager to try out on my local WordPress install. On that front, it was good to have a primer on event chaining and timing, particularly in relation to using JavaScript to implement event-specific CSS modifications. I also appreciated the segment on plugins; I only had a vague notion of what they entail before, one largely informed by working with WordPress.
It is at once satisfying and a little maddening that I’m at the point in my learning where this particular workshop couldn’t offer much of a challenge. The only issues I ran into over the course of the day can be traced to two things: still being in the adjustment period with Windows 8 after years of nothing but OS X, and a syntax error in which I forgot the period in front of a method and just couldn’t see it. As it stands, the latter tells me that checking for missing periods when troubleshooting is going to have to be for JS as checking for missing semicolons was while I was learning PHP.
The challenge will come; I simply need to find it on my own now. I have a new set of resources and lessons to explore, and a website to tinker with. And I can’t complain about the way I’ve been taking it slow learning JavaScript; clearly it’s been working.
Besides, where else would I have learned that browsing random websites with the console open can be an amusing and revealing pastime (thanks, Susan!)?