DEV Community: Ishan Siddhartha

Week 3 Done

Ishan Siddhartha — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 12:36:35 +0000

This week, I stepped into the world of backend development, and wow—it’s been a mix of awe and overwhelm.

What I Learned

Node.js and Express: These frameworks showed me how developers can streamline server-side programming. It’s incredible to see how much they simplify creating APIs and handling server requests.
Node Package Manager (NPM): This was eye-opening. The sheer number of libraries and tools available is a testament to the amazing contributions of the developer community.

The Overwhelm

Here’s the thing about technology—it’s endless. Coming from an education system that emphasizes memorization, I felt the weight of trying to learn and remember everything at once. But this week taught me something crucial:

Learning is a Process

Focus on Understanding: Memorizing everything upfront isn’t realistic. It’s more important to understand how things work and how to apply what you’ve learned.
Repetition and Practice: Things that matter—key concepts, patterns, and workflows—will naturally stick over time. Learning is a passive, long-term process, not a sprint.
Avoiding Tutorial Hell: Just watching tutorials without applying knowledge leads nowhere. Building projects and solving problems are the real ways to grow.

Final Thoughts

This week was a reminder that in web development, the journey is just as important as the destination. It’s about patience, practice, and understanding—everything else will follow with time.

Week 2 done 🚀

Ishan Siddhartha — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:01:49 +0000

This week was a rollercoaster—packed with learning, creativity, and a healthy dose of frustration. Looking back, I realize I might’ve pushed myself a bit too hard, cramming a lot into just seven days.

What I Covered

Here’s what I managed to tick off this week:

CSS Mastery: Learned Flexbox, Grid, Bootstrap, and general web design principles like color theory.
JavaScript Basics: Covered the fundamentals of JavaScript, which opened up so many possibilities.
jQuery & Simon Game: I started building a Simon game to practice JavaScript and integrate jQuery into my workflow.

Honestly, I’m proud of how much I learned—but it came at a cost.

The Cost of Speed

By midweek, I realized something: I was exhausted.

I was learning so much, so fast, that my brain barely had time to process it all. When I got stuck on parts of the Simon game, it was frustrating—because I couldn’t translate my thoughts into working code. It made me feel like I was running but not going anywhere.

What I Learned About Myself

This week’s biggest takeaway wasn’t technical—it was about pacing myself:

Learning needs balance: Going too fast burns you out; going too slow dulls motivation. The trick is finding that sweet spot where progress feels consistent but not overwhelming.
Patience is key: It’s okay to take a step back when frustration builds up. Coding takes practice and clarity, not just speed.

Goals Moving Forward

Complete the Simon Game: I hope to wrap this up tomorrow with a calmer mind.
Stick to a Sustainable Pace: I’ll focus on learning consistently every day rather than rushing through topics.

This week taught me that learning web development is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s better to enjoy the journey and absorb concepts deeply than to rush ahead and risk burnout.

week 1 ends!

Ishan Siddhartha — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:15:47 +0000

My First Week of Web Development: Learning (and Breaking) the Web

Starting web development is an exciting journey—until you accidentally create issues that break basic browser functionality. One of the most notable problems I faced this week was a Back button trap, an issue that reminds you how small mistakes can have big usability impacts.

The Backstory

While working on deploying my first portfolio site on GitHub Pages, I decided to redirect my root index.html to another folder using a meta-refresh tag:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=./Projects/4.3%20HTML%20Porfolio%20Project/index.html">

At first glance, it seemed to work fine. Visitors landed exactly where I wanted them to. But then came the discovery: pressing Back didn’t take me back! Instead, it threw users into a loop, reloading the redirect page repeatedly.

What Went Wrong?

The problem stemmed from breaking one of the most basic web navigation rules: respect the Back button. As pointed out in usability studies:

The Back button is the second most-used navigation feature, after links.
A seamless Back experience makes users feel safe to explore.

Using immediate redirects breaks this. Instead of letting users return to the previous page, the browser gets stuck in a loop of navigating back to the redirect, pushing them forward again.

Lesson Learned

Here’s what I realized about fixing and avoiding this mistake:

Redirection needs care:

Using a redirect isn’t wrong, but the implementation matters. Tools like JavaScript redirection (e.g., window.location.href) avoid polluting browser history, providing a smoother experience.
Server-side options are better:

If you have control over the server (or use a more advanced platform than GitHub Pages), HTTP redirects are ideal because they handle navigation gracefully.
Design for users, not shortcuts:

Breaking basic web conventions like the Back button—even accidentally—can turn a positive experience into a frustrating one. Always test your changes for usability!

A Bright Side to Mistakes

This mistake helped me understand more about user experience and web fundamentals. Even in failure, there’s growth—and that’s what made the first week of web development so rewarding.

Starting Web development

Ishan Siddhartha — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 14:28:06 +0000

over the next 5 weeks, I will be following the web dev course by Angela Yu on Udemy,
using this platform to document my journey and the struggles that I will encounter