I am in week 6 of ITM 352, and WODs are actually kinda fun. I've started to feel the challenge of each WOD paying off. I may not be the best (yet), but I'm on my way to becoming a reliable coder. The most recent WOD I completed, Invoice1, was an exercise to create an invoice or sales receipt with five items without "hard coding" the computations.
The receipt included a product name, quantity purchased, product price, and an extended price (the quantity purchased multiplied by the price) for each item. Next, I needed to provide a subtotal, tax and total for the items purchased. The part I had the most difficult was creating a template utilizing tables, rows and columns in HTML to place each variable in. After researching the syntax for tables in HTML, Invoice1 was pretty easy. I was able to create a table with five columns to accomodate for each item and category on the receipt. The next step was to use the document.write() function to code the variable and computations into the table. I found that taking the time to break down what the WOD is asking me to do helps me to prepare. For example, part 7 of Invoice one instructed me to "Add HTML to display the basic table." which made me think, "I have no clue how to add a table in HTML." So I took the time to research tables in HTML, and I found a link to W3Schools showing me the syntax for tables. The extra time I put into preparing for WODs allows me to digest the material and implement code intentionally rather than typing mindlessly. The only downside is that I tend to spend more time on the WODs then I should because even if I fail I try not to look at the WOD screencasts so I can learn on my own. This does have the benefit of teaching me to be self-sufficent, but I end up spending a couple hours on one WOD. So with the next WOD I'm gonna put my pride aside and watch a screencast sooner rather than later.
I'm looking forward to the new challenes ITM 352 will bring!