In this post I will discuss how I worked through Sprint 4.
When I was working through the kata problems on repl.it for Sprint 4 I came across this problem:
We need to map over every word in a given sentence and Capitalize The First Letter Of Every Word.
It took me about twenty to thirty minutes to solve the question. Well, I thought I had solved it. The code I had written didn't work.
I was 99% sure I had answered the question correctly but the code just wouldn't work. So I ran to Google. I searched just about anything
everything related to the question and the answer I provided. But I still couldn't figure out what I had done wrong.
I then reviewed the sample code Dev Academy had provided and I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with my answer.
I felt frustrated and annoyed. This feeling would only grow more as I realised that in some examples provdied online, they would use a space between their seperators for the join() function. For example (' '). However, I assumed that the space was only white space and didn't matter so I would always type (''). A small error but it stopped my answer from working at all.
The first kata/problem I had to solve in Sprint 4 was focused on Javascript variables and objects. Something that I didn't quite remember from my time using Free Code Camp. Also at first I was confused about how I was actually supposed to solve the problem. When I finally realised what to do it was easy for me to code alongside the terminal on repl.it. The terminal actually guides you through the problem step by step and when I was able to follow this, the problem was solved easily and naturally. I guess this could be classed as elegant? I'm not sure.
naturally I always try to find the answer on my own. Which can be good and bad at the same time. I find that it helps me understand the topic/problem more if I find the answer/help on my own. Usually this is through Google, reading over material I may already have or looking at examples. However, there are other ways of solving problems that I should utilize and I will list them down below in a category of confident or not confident.
Now, the first thing you may have noticed was that I wrote asking peers & coaches in both categories. That is because at the moment I am working remotely from home so the only way I have to contact anyone is via email or messaging on Slack. For me this is something I found troublesome and slow. I always think that by the time someone responds to my question, I could have found the answer already on my own some other way. Now this is a terrible way of thinking to be honest but when I am working on the computer I also find that it is very easy to get distracted, especially at home! so if I stay on the computer and look for the answer myself instead of using my phone to go on Slack (This usually leads me on to instagram, facebook etc haha) I find that I stay quite focused.
However, if I am working alongside other people and we're all working on the same or similar things, then I am more likely to ask for help instead of searching for the answer myself. This is because everyone is right there and it's easy to simply spark up a conversation. I also find it helps me understand the subject more when talking about it.