Project Reflection

### Intention Timer ###


### Myself and my partner worked on the Intention Timer project together. Essentially it was developing a website in which
a user would submit information regarding what they wanted to do and the duration of that activity. At first glance, the 
scope of what the instructors wanted us to do seemed impossible given my very limited coding skillset. However, the 
biggest takeaway I got from completing the project was developing the skill to reach out to my peers if I encountered a 
problem, instead of just trying to forge my way forward alone. The code that was produced wasn't just a collaboration from 
soley myself and my partner, but rather a combination of ideas from upper Mod students, fellow Mod1 students, and Turing 
alums. 


### What is your approach to working on a team? 

I think taking the time initially to 'define the relationship' was essential in working together with my teammate. Since 
my partner and I were virtually strangers to each other prior to working together, it was very important to get to know 
this person (work habits, personality, etc.) before we took on a big problem. From the beginning we decided when to meet
early in the morning before class, established prior commitments that would break from the usual workflow, and express what we felt like were
our skills and what we would like to spend more time on to develop. Communication was essential, the learning process of
figuring out basic javascript principals and how to collaborate without conflicts on github meant that both of us had to be
on the same page at all times and to know exactly where each other was at in the process of building the site. 


### You can’t work out how to solve a coding problem. What do you do to find the answer?

For our group, the biggest hurdle we faced while doing the Intention Timer project was by far getting the countdown timer
to operate. Even while creating the opening page in which the user selects their activity and the duration of it, the task
of building a timer from scratch was constantly in the back of our minds. Once we got to the inevitable point of where we 
had to actually figure it out, we started off by just trying to get a broad idea of what a countdown timer does. 
This involved a lot of pseudo coding (a skill that I am actively trying to work on more), collaboration with other groups,
and youtube videos. After working with these resources we started the process of actually coding the countdown timer and 
after a few hours we got to the point where it should have worked. We had expirmented with things on repl and codepen and
everything seemed to be working out, however we had an issue with our output data not showing up correctly as a value 
on the timer page. We went to MDN, figured out that we had to either run the Number() and/or parseInt() functions but 
those still did not resolve the problem. After struggling with this for far too long, we decided to make the long walk
(of shame) over to the Mod4 FE classroom with our best sad puppy faces for a second opinion. Kayla (I believe that was her name)
 was super helpful in explaining the problem in terms that we could understand and even psuedo coded the steps on the whiteboard
so that we could walk through her thought process with her. After that the timer worked! That night and the following day
I spent quite a bit of time just looking at the function and running the process through my head over and over again so that I 
fully understood what it was doing and why. 

### What is one personal/professional takeaway from this project?

Technically, I feel like I developed a lot of skills and learned many new concepts during this process. This included 
sharpening the concepts I had learned prior in html and css, and developed a foundation with javascript moving forward. 
However on a personal note, I feel like my biggest takeaway was to not be afraid to reach out to others when faced with a 
setback. Typically in the past I have tried to forge my way forward on my own through grit and perseverence, and to a
certain extent it has worked. Coding is a whole different monster, and limiting my resources to just myself is not the
most effecient and effective practice. I think at times I can be a little too prideful, and reaching out to others with a
problem can expose my vulnerabitlity. But I need to be okay with that, no one knows all the answers. It is a very redeeming
feeling when you can reach out to a peer and get help with a problem, then when they need something you can be there for 
them. This is one of the reasons I decided to pursue a future in coding, the community embraces failure, is always
there for you when you need help, and forms a symbiotic relationship so that everyone can move forward together.


### Which Beyonce ###

### What role do you typically play on a team?

Within our group, nobody really had a defined role as to what specifically they were to do. We all had the same goal, 
and each individual member basically had the same type of tasks needed to be done. If anything, during the first initial
days of the project I would take the role of navigator while styling CSS. This made the process more effecient by taking
the perspective of an outside user and offer aesthetic recommendations instead of focusing purely on the code. After that,
once we dived deeper into javascript each member would switch off between driving, navigating, and doing solo work on
specific assignments. 

### What resources or strategies did you use when you were presented with a technical challenge?

One of the things that I like about software development is the fact that no one has all the answers, and the community
is very supportive of one another and their success. When faced with problems (and there were many of them), our first
step was to spend time on the issue ourselves and see if we can teach ourselves the solutions. If this did not resolve
the issue, then googling the solution was our next step. For some problems this worked, but not all the time. After
that we would reach out to other groups, upper mods, and our mentors. Without them, there is no way we would have gotten
as far as we did!

### What is one technical takeaway from this project?
Getting more comfortable with how the card and deck interacted with the main.js file was a major takeaway for myself. Up
until this point I had a loose concept of how classes worked through practice with mythical critters and other tests, but
there was still a lot of grey area in terms of how it could be implemented in a project.

## Check Yo' Self

### How did you adapt to working on a project solo instead of being a member on a team? (Own question, the others were related to working on a team)

Initially I was very excited to demonstrate the skills developed over the last few weeks and the first initial steps 
of the project went very smoothly. Once the inevitable first hurdle appeared, I tried to figure out the issue on my own
for as long as possible by prodding and manipulating the code to what I want it to be, looking at previous projects as a 
potential template, and researching online for resolutions. This worked for some issues, but not every case.

### What resources or strategies did you use when you were presented with a technical challenge?

In the past,not only in Turing, when faced with problems I would often suffer in silence and not reach out for support. However during
the course of this project I took active measures to reach out to other classmates, my rock, my mentor, and other friends
within the tech community. They did an amazing job of teaching me to fish, instead of simply giving me the answers.

### What is one technical takeaway from this project?

Many technical takeaways from this project. As mentioned earlier, I really wanted to solidify my understanding about how
classes are implemented purely for data manipulation and how that is seperated from the functionality on the DOM. I also
had many 'lightbulb' moments with local storage. Although I did not get as far as I had wanted, I still feel proud of the 
code that I had developed within the shortened time frame.