Pushing Through

I feel I was a little slow this week. Most of my progress occurred in my head, rather than in the code. I know that actually writing or modifying the code to accomplish my goals takes a only few minutes, but a crucial part of writing is knowing what to write. I spend so much time figuring out how to phrase things, struggling through syntax, and looking for examples of what I need that it takes me quite a long time to create successful code. Some of what I’m working on now is very similar to things I created a few weeks ago, but when I look for those examples in the directory, I get confused because I can’t find them.

    Despite feeling lost and frustrated, however, I managed to get a few things done so far this week. I know I need to fully understand the tagging process in order to create a user-tagging system, so I created five new tags (the keywords themselves) and fourteen new taggings (pathways between the keyword and the video the keyword pertains to). These new tags and taggings are a bonus advantage because they give me more content to work with on the test site. All this extra material helped me organize the tags show page, and I got it to the point of a preliminary “all results” tab in my future tabview. When you search a tag, now the results page gives you a few worlds under its own header at the top of the page, and then a few related challenges under its own header below the worlds. I decided to work on worlds and challenges for now before adding in users. I think it will be easier to stick them in later once I have the previous two tabs working properly.

    Another late-afternoon development: a working subheader on the tags show page. Each page has its own subheader and soon, “tags” could potentially be an option on the main menu. Its subheader menu options include “All Results,” “Worlds,” “Challenges,” and “Users,” at the moment. I believe this will work well for now as a logical display for search results. I like the idea of an easy-to-use layout for the search result page (a.k.a. the tags showpage). I like the new level of organization, but I hope to make it look a little better next week and get those tabs working better, too.

    I honestly think I’m making decent progress, even though it’s mostly mental. I’m learning that my computer skills are heightened by the combination of many seemingly unrelated skills. For instance, my reporting instincts serve me well when trying to “get the backstory” on controllers or test fixtures. When looking at a new subject, I am already trained to the point of intuition to hone in on the how, where, and why of it. In the same breath, I record all of the information I can possibly gather in answering these simple questions. Reviewing my notes has been my saving grace as I search for the paths to my goals.

    I may not code very quickly right now, but knowing how to use my current logical ability to grow in my computer skills looks like progress to me. As long as I’m moving forward and consistently reaching my goals, I don’t mind how long it takes me or how much I struggle. The important thing is that I’m learning and gaining new aptitude, and that’s the most I could hope for out of this experience.