Last spring I found #100DaysOfCode on Twitter and started the challenge on June 9th, 2020 with Day000. Just two months later I quit the challenge on August 8th, 2020 at Day0045. Keep reading if you want to know why I quit and why I am ready to start round #2 on Monday March 1st, 2021.
While listening to the Indie Hackers podcast I realized that a lot of “Tech People” were using Twitter and I wanted to connect to “Tech People”. So, last January I opened a Twitter account to follow Courtland Allen (@csallen) and Indie Hackers (@IndieHackers). As I followed more and more tech people on Twitter I eventually I learned about the #100DaysOfCode challenge and decided to join the fun. At the time I was learning Python because I thought it would possibly be useful at work. This was my first problem. Although, I enjoyed Python and was making fun project I had no real need to know Python. I ended up focusing too much on committing to GitHub and not enough time learning something that was important to me. I would see Tweets from people who were committing to GitHub daily with almost solid green contributions and that was depressing.
Here is a screen shot I took from GitHub when I wrote this blog post. It isn’t very impressive because I had the wrong focus.
What I really wanted was to build WordPress websites so I switched my focus and started a WordPress course on Udemy. Almost immediately got side tracked by my second problem. I didn’t have a development environment for WordPress. Many people don’t include Linux options when explaining things like how to set up a WordPress development environment. While I focused on learning about web servers on Ubuntu I gave up using the #100DaysOfCode hash tag on Twitter. I didn’t stop learning I merely stopped Tweeting daily and using a hash tag. Admittedly it took me way to long to understand how to install and use a LAMP stack on Ubuntu but I learned a lot along the way.
Enough excuses. I am recommitting to #100DaysOfCode. Starting Monday March 1st, 2021 I will be looking to #100DaysOfCode and Twitter for accountability. My human family holds me accountable for things like taking out the trash and my dog family makes sure I don’t miss my daily walks. The #100DaysOfCode and #TechTwitter family will give me accountability to learn web development. Hopefully the accountability paired with aligning #100DaysOfCode and my goal of learning WordPress will be a formula for success.
I don’t know how this second round of #100DaysOfCode will look however I will be blogging and Tweeting as I go. Please add to my accountability and follow me on Twitter @KarlsClipboard or email me karl@karlsclipboard.com.