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So it’s the fourth week that I’ve been working with Antelle, the past 4 weeks seem to have gone by in a flash of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In the three weeks since I last posted a lot has happened in regards to training, much has been learned, and I feel like I’m settling down into the office and getting used to the environment.

In regards to training, at the beginning of the second week, Ben and I were tasked with creating a “Contact us” page with inspiration taken from a project that Antelle had just finished. The learning curve was a steep one, with much new to learn, such as HTML forms, form validation, regular expressions and it was our first introduction to JavaScript. However there were principles that we had learned in the previous week that underpinned the development of the page, such as responsive design. On the other hand, JavaScript is a whole new beast, personally with it being my first programming language I am finding it difficult to get my head around the logic of programming as a whole, but it is slowly coming together.

Researching the use of HTML forms was the easy part, but finding a way to use JavaScript to validate input information, and make the drop down menus interactive was a very difficult task for me. It is a completely new way of thinking for me.

Following the creation of the basic page, with interactivity with the help of JavaScript, I now needed to find a way of collecting the information submitted in the form and presenting it on another page.  After hunting the web for methods I came across the use of VB and PHP, after swiftly being re-directed onto the right course, I found a method of doing such, with JavaScript alone, using the GET method to send the data through the url to the next page, and using a query string to sort the information and present it neatly in a table. It was messy, but it worked… just. But prior to that I had attempted to use the POST method, before discovering that POST was not useable purely in JavaScript. It was a learning process, a process of trial and error to meet the specifications of the task we were set, which was to use purely JavaScript.

Week three was the first week we were introduced to Pluralsight, a fantastic resource for developers and it professionals of all levels, form beginner to expert. The online courses that it provides are most likely some of the best in the internet. I have been ploughing my way through many of the beginner level courses on HTML, CSS and JavaScript and their associated technologies, such as Bootstrap and jQuery, for the last week, possibly just beginning to break down some of the intermediate level courses, and continuing through into this current, fourth week.

The past month of working with Antelle has been good, I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed my time here, although I know I have much more to learn, and it will be challenging.