30 day challenge - 30 sites in 30 days
Creating 30 sites in 30 days seems like a daunting task, and for the record it is. However, you will learn a lot about yourself and maybe a little about coding as you proceed through this challenge. You can signup for it here: http://codelegy.com/30days30sites/ and it is free and I'm not hosting, maintaining, or have anything to do with it actually. Just thought it was fun so I'm doing it.
Why do it now?
Well, that is an excellent question. I have been a developer for over 20 years professionally so why do a 30 day challenge of creating random websites? Simply because practice is what makes you better. Reading 10 technical manuals does not make you a better developer, creating 10 applications does. There is a caveat to that of course. As they say, you don't know what you don't know, so if you do the same thing over and over again, then you aren't getting better, you are just repeating a process. You need to have a level of self-awareness for you to improve what you did. You need to question yourself as you do it again.
Daily challenges matter
We all are looking for ways to improve ourselves. If you aren't, then this article is not for you. You should try something that you don't know how to do. Yeah, it sucks, it is frustrating, you don't get to shine. But you increase your experience, you learn how you learn, and you pick up other things faster. So challenge yourself.
Inspiration comes from random areas
I do my daily work but that doesn't always inspire me. I practice jiujitsu and have been on and (mostly off) since 1994 (Thanks Donovan!) in 4 different states. You would think I should be a black belt by now, but no, I'm a white belt. Why? My own blocks of reasons to not attend, to not progress, to not test. I move, I get "busy", I do random other things that prevent me from it. Well, it is one of the healthiest things I have ever done for myself, but I never thought I could be good at it. I couldn't pass the test, I'll just train and not worry about that. That is a simple justification created by fear. This 30 day challenge has taught me that I can do things and I am good enough to do things and my fear is no longer driving me. I'm inspired by a coding challenge to continue my juijitsu, who would have thought?
Here's my stuff
That is the other thing that is really difficult about a 30 day challenge like this. I'm showing my code, my work, my practice to others. I post to the facebook group all the time and my sites are not amazing, but it is just how fast can I get it done. Then I go back and improve them when I can. I get feedback from others... sometimes praise, sometimes criticism... one of my sites was so bad you couldn't even view it on mobile... That is fixed now. :-) I get better. I write more and I keep going.
Here is the github. Here is the facebook group and here is my site for this challenge: http://30days.lotekmedia.com/
You will see some other random tricks there too. I started in codepen.io but then moved to my own site for various reasons.
Hope you enjoy and go challenge yourself!