My Kind of Advent Calendar: #Javascriptmas

Darlene Wong — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 07:56:20 +0000

I had an Advent calendar as a child, which consisted of a paper calendar with flaps to open and reveal a graphic for the day. It was so exciting to open the window flap each day and discover a new surprise, all while counting down the days until Christmas!

Over the years, I've discovered that there are many different types of Advent calendars, some providing tasty treats like daily chocolates or an alcoholic beverage. Now, I've finally found the ultimate type of Advent calendar for us geeks: daily coding exercises!

The first time I heard of Scrimba was at a Women Who Code virtual meetup. It was Typescript study night, and I was interested in attending so that I could improve upon my Google Cloud Functions. They had us do the Scrimba Introduction to Typescript tutorial. I was impressed with the platform and how easy it was to code on the same page where you were watching the tutorial videos!

Fast-forward to November, and while I was browsing the Scrimba Black Friday sale (my kind of geeky holiday shopping!) I came across an announcement for the forthcoming Javascriptmas challenge! At first I was a bit nervous that they would be too challenging for my level, but it turned out to be great for learning how to write idiomatic Javascript. Some of the challenges were easier than others, as I'm currently still getting through one of the CSS exercises (maybe I'll need to find a CSS Advent calendar next year). Overall, it's been a great learning process for me and I found these to be the top 3 benefits of participating in Javascriptmas:

1. Consistent daily practice

When learning any new skill, it is important to practice on a regular basis, and Javascript is no different! Having daily challenges helps to build up the muscle-memory for remembering what you've learned, so that you can apply it to the following day's tasks!

2. Learning from other Javascriptmasser's solutions

I really appreciated being able to browse other Javascriptmasser's solutions on Twitter and Discord. It's amazing how many different ways there are to solve the same problem, and how much you can learn from reading other people's solutions!

3. Having something new to look forward to each day!

I've really had a blast anticipating the new challenges that would be revealed around 9PM (in my timezone) each evening for the past few weeks! On some nights I would refresh the browser as if I were waiting for popular concert tickets to go on sale.

I'm so glad I discovered a new type of Advent calendar this year through Scrimba! Merry Javascriptmas, everyone!