Can't Believe I had to Install Linux Just For a Course.. JJ Day 2

Day 2 of my JavaScript Journey, I didn't expect to hit a wall and install a whole new OS moving forward. Luckily, I didn't have to rethink my plan… because I didn't have much of one.

Before I got into CSS, I revised what I'd learnt yesterday. I rewrote a very basic HTML page using whatever I could remember. I didn't get it right the first time, so my notes from yesterday came in handy. Here's what I made:

It's not going to win any awards, but hey, now I won't forget what I learned anytime soon. I'll be refreshing what I learnt the previous day every day from now on (just a heads up).

Next up: CSS.

CSS: Style is as necessary as content

Turns out, every site would look a lot like my HTML draft without CSS: plain, blocky and lifeless. CSS is the cool outfit that's worn by an HTML. I used the very useful MDN web docs to understand the fundamentals of CSS. I memorised and played around with a few CSS styles, and was able to inject them into my previous HTML page. This is what I was able to do:

It doesn’t look a whole lot better than before. But now I know how basic CSS works. I'm not much of an artist, anyway.

Let's finally start learning JavaScript

After an hour of HTML/CSS reps, I felt stable enough to jump into JavaScript.

Asking around on Reddit, I was led to The Odin Project. It's a website with structured and challenging free courses in JavaScript and coding in general. It had all I wanted for this project.

The OS wall

There's a catch, though. Odin strictly uses Linux to teach Windows users. I've always been a Windows user. But I guess we have to learn new things sometimes.

Hence I had to set up a Virtual Machine, download Ubuntu, and prepare to shift my learning methods. The installation took 30 minutes.

I didn’t waste the time, though. I made a new HTML/CSS file and tried coding from scratch again. No notes, no tutorials. This time, I got it right first try.

Today's takeaway: It's not going to be easy

Day 2 and I've already had my confidence tested. I'm making progress, though. I've been able to cover the basics of HTML, CSS and develop an idea of how the web works. Hopefully I can keep it up for the remainder of the journey.

Tomorrow, I'll start tackling JavaScript, and we'll see how it goes.