The readings and responses listed here should take you approximately 60 minutes.
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1. Learning Fluency by Turing alum Sara Simon (30 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
- As someone with a Music Performance degree, a lot of this hit close to home in relationto drills and practice for fluency before creativity. Crawl before you walk, walk before you run.
- I think a good way to implement some of these points is following the drill method. Make the same page a few times, the same way from scratch. Build, rebuild, repeat. not only will it make coding more efficient, but it helps you to think ahead and optimize.
- It was comforting to see how someone else went from so non-STEM a field into a STEM field, similar to what my background is. I've been working in IT for a while, but the imposter syndrome is still strong I think. Confidence is something that comes with fluency, and I think the more fluent I feel, the more confident I can be.
- Following this approach of accepting that mundane drills are necessary before creativity is very eye opening to me when coming at it from a language. I think it is easy to jump to only looking at "This is what I want to do!" and only focusing on that, without actually developing any basic proficiency. I know I have done that with previous delvings into coding, like with Visual Basic macros or random scripts. You may develop a basic vocabulary, but not actually have a fluency or proficiency with what you are using. There's nothing like looking back at code I wrote previously only to say "I have no idea what this is...". That to me shows a lack of fluency.
2. How to Use Google to Solve Your Programming Questions by Coding in Flow (15 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
- Many of these are great Google search tips. I definitely use quotes when searching for specific items or errors. That really has helped me in the past.
- Exclusion of searches is just as important as inclusion. Using the '-' character along with time constrains (tools I have not really utilized much myself) I can see can really help cull the massive herd of results to what is actually prime information.
- Learning how to search and find the answers to your questions is more important than always having an answer. You are NEVER going to be able to answer every problem, situation, or question...it's impossible. What you CAN do is know how to find the answer, and do so efficiently.
3. Do Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently? by Umer Mansoor (10 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 2):
- Use your tools. Does it make sense to improvise a tool when a hammer will do just fine?
- Knowing what you need to do and how to do it are separate things. You can know you need to get from point A to point C, and be able to find out that you have to go through point B in order to get there. Now we know, and knowing is half the battle insert GI Joe theme.
4. 20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently by Joseph Hindy (15 min)
- Briefly describe (in your own words) each of the tips below AND provide an example of a search that captures the sentiment of the tip
- Tip 2: This goes over how to do phrase searches, rather than singular word searches. A good example of this is of you have an error coming up while writing code. Ex: javascript "Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected Identifier"
- Tip 3: Sometimes we need to narrow our search by filtering out results that contain items we may not want. For example, if searching for information on office applications for a computer and you want to exclude Windows OS you could do Ex: office application -windows
- Tip 4: If you know the information you need is on a specific website, you can search for that information by using a colon (:). Say you know there was an article about Mike Tyson on NPR that you wanted to find, you can search Ex: Mike Tyson site:npr.org to only get results from NPR
- Tip 9: You can search for multiple phrases or words at the same time by using the OR operator. This will include results of both items in the search, though one result may not also contain the other result. You might use this if you are looking for information on either Ex: baseball OR softball
- Tip 13: Instead of searching based on your current experience or problem, search on what you think the solution or result might look like. This isn't "Ask Jeeves"...instead of stating your problem, state the solution Ex: replace broken laptop charger
- Tip 14: Google doesn't need to hear the whole story, it only needs the important plot points. Again, this isn't "Ask Jeeves", and we don't need to treat our computer like a person. Ex: I want to see a showing of Avengers this evening by me -> Avengers showtimes near me
- Tip 17: Many questions may have the same solution...You should rephrase or specify what your problem is using more descriptive words. Less broad, more specific, and rephrase until you find the best answer. Ex: how to boil water, boiling methods, make water hot so it bubbles
If you have any questions, comments, or confusions from any of the readings that you would like an instructor to address, list them below: