I decided to go ahead and spend some real money and finally learn some web technologies. 100 Days of Web with Python is pretty interesting so far. I’ve finished the first 3 days (1 lab) and can now create a basic web page template using Flask. Since I don’t know HTML or CSS (very well) I haven’t done much customizing. Here is my Github repo with my site so far.
The video lectures are well paced and chunked really well. I never felt overwhelmed and was easily able to follow the instructions (even though the first instructor is using Windows 10 and I’m on Linux). He made a point of giving instructions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and I could follow along no problem. I’m already comfortable with Vim, so that part was easy enough. When I went back today for day 3, which is basically to redo the whole process on your own without looking at the instructions (as much as possible), I used VS Code (my normal editor for Python). I was able to do about half of the process without looking at the instructions. I did forget a few little things:
- The specific modules to import from flask haven’t sunk in completely. They’re logical enough, but I still need to connect the dots in my head completely.
- For some reason, I keep forgetting that the templates folder has to be inside of the program folder.
- I had to look up how to setup the virtual environment again.
One big thing that I’ve already learned which now seems so simple and obvious is virtual environments in Python. There have been so many times that I have read about using virtual environments, only to get confused about how to set them up or use them. If I had known it’s as simple as python -m venv venv, I would have started using them a LONG time ago (I don’t know how many modules I have pip-installed for a one off project that I never used again!) I will definitely have my Advanced CS courses use virtual environments next year!
Even 3 days in, I think I’m going to be very happy with my choice to start 100 days of programming. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to the journey.
Daily CS 