Not Really Day 1

Sometime during all this not-really-quarantine madness I started really thinking about my future. I like the work that I do now, but its really quite physical and probably not sustainable for the long-haul. 

I have always been into computers and programming, dabbling throughout the years.  I taught myself HTML back in the 90's when it was new and designed a website for my battalion.  I learned NT server and installed and administered the first LAN at that same unit.  Years later I built websites for fun and profit, learning the tricks at the time of ranking in search engine results.  I build a website and then another website when WordPress updates finally broke the first one for my aunt.  I've always loved messing with my computer and have built my own desktops for many years.  

So I've chosen to more seriously pursue software or website development.  I have purchased some courses on Udemy although I don't know whether that's the best course or not.  I've been working through the Complete Web Developer in 2020: Zero to Mastery by Andrei Neagoie.  I'm frustrated with several parts of it and I am feeling like I'm just googling for code snippets to solve the problem rather than understanding how to create the code to solve the issue.

Basically the purpose of this blog is to create an accountability for myself & not so much to attract readers of any kind.  I get distracted going down rabbit holes and I feel like I fly through the course material even taking lots of notes,  then get to the exercises and am overwhelmed by the problems to solve compared to the relative simplicity of the course material covered.  As such I plan to evaluate a few other options I've found for web development. Specifically:

• The Odin Project
• Watch and Code's Practical Javascript

The other courses I've already purchased from Udemy are Andrei's Complete Python Developer in 2020 and another that was free: Automate the Boring Stuff with Python Programming with Al Sweigart.

My goals for today: spend time with the other 2 options listed & choose if one is worth pursuing further.  I'm currently 40% of the way through Andrei's web developer course.  I wanted to get the last exercise done, but I'm stuck & I feel like the only way to finish is to copy code from various places & I don't want to do that.