So Much To Do!
Do you ever feel like there is so much to do, that you end up doing nothing at all. Overwhelmed is what they call it, I believe. As I try to "put my name" out there into Cyber Space, I am humbled by how much I don't know and exhausted by how much I need to do.
Twitter - Check
Facebook - Check
YouTube - Check
Blog - Check
GitHub - Check
Website - Check
Language Skills - Check
Daily Coding - Check
New Skill Development - Check
Podcasts - Check
New Software Familiarization - Check
What's left? Oh yes, full-time job, family, and 1/2 time school. Not to mention dealing with the everyday things like taking care of the lawns and fixing up the house, doctors appointments, and other responsibilities. At times it seems like I have no time to myself and not enough time to really focus on any particular thing.
Did I mention I run a D&D campaign twice a month. Every other Saturday from 3-10 PM.
If you're following my blog, or if you're reading these chronologically, you'll be happy to know that I solved the Code Fights arcade challenge that was giving me such a hassle. I also killed about 5 more challenges.
One of the things I enjoy about Code Fights is the knowledge I get from seeing other people's solutions. I spend a day or two solving a problem and then, once my tests pass, I get to see how other people solved it. Most recently I was introduced to "abs()" or absolute value.
The challenge was to find the greatest difference between contiguous integers in an array. I looped through them one direction and then looped through them the other direction to store the highest positive value. Using abs(), however, this cut the process in half, as any negative number would return a positive value.
Moving quickly through level 5, I came across a challenge requiring me to validate whether a given string was an IPv4 address. As a Network Technician, this got my attention. Finally, something related to my current field.
After giving it a day of thought, I turned to the forum to see what ideas other people had. Enter regex(). Although everyone in the forum mentions regex(), after 2 days I am still struggling to figure out how exactly to use it.
It seems that with each new challenge I go through this development cycle:
1. Struggle through a challenge using the limited coding knowledge I have
2. Solve the problem in a very "work around" way
3. See solutions of about 3-4 lines of code
4. Get introduced to a new library, function, object
5. Spend a few days learning
It's a nice cycle that is helping me learn new C++ code. The only problem is feeling inadequate and far behind the curve. I hope within the next year or two that something will click and I will feel confident in my skills. When I beat a challenge, I feel on top of the world! Then I come across something like regex() and I feel like a day 1 coder.
Twitter - Check
Facebook - Check
YouTube - Check
Blog - Check
GitHub - Check
Website - Check
Language Skills - Check
Daily Coding - Check
New Skill Development - Check
Podcasts - Check
New Software Familiarization - Check
What's left? Oh yes, full-time job, family, and 1/2 time school. Not to mention dealing with the everyday things like taking care of the lawns and fixing up the house, doctors appointments, and other responsibilities. At times it seems like I have no time to myself and not enough time to really focus on any particular thing.
Did I mention I run a D&D campaign twice a month. Every other Saturday from 3-10 PM.
If you're following my blog, or if you're reading these chronologically, you'll be happy to know that I solved the Code Fights arcade challenge that was giving me such a hassle. I also killed about 5 more challenges.
One of the things I enjoy about Code Fights is the knowledge I get from seeing other people's solutions. I spend a day or two solving a problem and then, once my tests pass, I get to see how other people solved it. Most recently I was introduced to "abs()" or absolute value.
The challenge was to find the greatest difference between contiguous integers in an array. I looped through them one direction and then looped through them the other direction to store the highest positive value. Using abs(), however, this cut the process in half, as any negative number would return a positive value.
Moving quickly through level 5, I came across a challenge requiring me to validate whether a given string was an IPv4 address. As a Network Technician, this got my attention. Finally, something related to my current field.
After giving it a day of thought, I turned to the forum to see what ideas other people had. Enter regex(). Although everyone in the forum mentions regex(), after 2 days I am still struggling to figure out how exactly to use it.
It seems that with each new challenge I go through this development cycle:
1. Struggle through a challenge using the limited coding knowledge I have
2. Solve the problem in a very "work around" way
3. See solutions of about 3-4 lines of code
4. Get introduced to a new library, function, object
5. Spend a few days learning
It's a nice cycle that is helping me learn new C++ code. The only problem is feeling inadequate and far behind the curve. I hope within the next year or two that something will click and I will feel confident in my skills. When I beat a challenge, I feel on top of the world! Then I come across something like regex() and I feel like a day 1 coder.
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