Understanding Chrome Dev Tools as a Code Newbie

Quinton Raymond — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 17:50:06 +0000

Prior to starting The Odin Project's Full Stack Ruby on Rails track, I only used Chrome Dev Tools a handful of times to view the CSS styling of a specific element or to help me understand how certain scripts were running on a page.

I knew that DevTools was an extremely powerful tool, but I didn't really know where to start my exploration of its many uses.

Below are four resources that I found helpful in understanding how to use Chrome Dev Tools:

✅ This video by Wes Bos is short enough to keep your attention and gives a robust overview of the things that you can accomplish in Dev Tools.

✅ These Google Dev Tool guides in the Dev Tools documentation were easy to follow and provide instant gratification by allowing you to complete small challenges right from the webpage.

✅ This guide by KeyCDN is a perfect one to bookmark. It has lots of useful tips and tricks and I find myself coming back to this article often to refresh my memory.

✅ The Net Ninja has a great series of videos on Chrome Dev Tools as well. I'd recommend watching the entire series!

Walking through these guides/tutorials has already saved me ⌛ and stress in my #codenewbie journey.

I'm sharing these resources with hopes that another beginner finds them useful.

Happy coding, friends! 🚀

Newbie to Full-Stack Developer with The Odin Project

Quinton Raymond — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 00:19:56 +0000

I previously uploaded this post to my Medium profile but figured this might be a better audience for encouragement and accountability.

Over the last 4 years, I have flirted with web development constantly. I chipped away at FreeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design Certification, paid for two full years of CodeCademy Pro, thought about signing up for Treehouse.

I even had a mid-COVID-19 quarantine crisis and enrolled in a Data Science Bootcamp at General Assembly. The bootcamp was hell. I lasted 6 weeks before admitting that I was not remotely prepared to use Statistics, Python, Pandas, and the fundamentals of Machine Learning in a paid position– full-time. I panicked, dropped out, and continued clicking through the mountains of modules at FreeCodeCamp.

Then I found The Odin Project.

The Odin Project (TOP) seemed too good to be true. It was FREE, self-paced, gave access to live support through Discord, and required students to set up an integrated development environment (IDE). It was absolutely packed with outside resources which meant that it was designed for genuine engagement and self-discovery. And most importantly (to me), it required students to begin using the CLI immediately. TOP was the only truly robust, free program that taught students how to code as they would IRL. Without sandboxes.

I read a few reviews and decided to start off with the Full Stack Ruby on Rails track. I’m one week in and still (re)reviewing the fundamentals of HTML and CSS. Only this time I actually feel like I’m learning– AND remembering things!

I wrote this post as a “hello world” to introduce my personal web development journey. I mostly plan to use it as a space to write tutorials for myself, share things that I find interesting/useful, and hold myself accountable in making real progress.

Ideally, I would like to complete TOP in its entirety within a year. However, if I don’t complete it at that pace I’m not going to beat myself up.

This time I'm committed to making consistent progress, and I'm looking to find encouragement and guidance along the way.

DEV Community: Quinton Raymond

Understanding Chrome Dev Tools as a Code Newbie

Newbie to Full-Stack Developer with The Odin Project