aardwolf – jmf dot codes

Happy new year, friends. I spent most of the holiday season working on the wd4e specialization, and finished intro to CSS3, interactivity with JavaScript, and advanced styling with responsive design. My capstone begins in March.

When I first read about 100 Days of Code, I realized I needed this kind of motivation, and I’ve been focusing on developing a code-something-everyday habit… and opted not to blog about it. I want to track my progress more linearly, so I’m going to change that today, and restart the clock to Day 1.

Day 1: Finished drafting contributing.md and editing code of conduct for the Aardwolf project (PR link). I’ve been tracking my job search in using mySQL and a CRUD UI I designed myself, and I spent some time tweaking the UI for that. For privacy reasons, I’ll just share my CSS using a representative table of cats.

This exercise is a reminder that I prefer back-end to front-end work. I am colorblind and the things I find attractive, you might find hideous. My personal style leans in a simpler direction: black, white, shades of gray, which also tend to be much more accessible to a broader audience. But there’s something relaxing about playing with color pallets– kind of like coloring with a fresh box of crayons! So for this exercise, don’t judge– I don’t feel bad about it. 🙂

I confess that graphic design is not my strong suit, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m much more useful behind the scenes. But web accessibility is so important to me that I needed to learn more about the front end. I’m in the middle of this Web Design for Everybody specialization. It’s been fantastic, and it’s another University of Michigan series on Coursera– I’m so impressed with the University of Michigan! So far, I have completed the HTML course (a sample of some HTML scribbles), and nearly-completed the CSS course (a sample of some CSS scribbles), and I am halfway through the JavaScript course. I have a much healthier appreciation for how much work goes into a fully functional website– and I’ve recommitted myself to making my code the most accessible as possible. Whether it’s a blog post or a full-blown app. The internet is awesome. It should be accessible to everyone who wants to access it, with no exceptions.

I am excited to say I’ll be helping out with the Aardwolf project, a decentralized and open-source alternative to Facebook that was inspired by Mastodon, an open-source microblogging platform. I drafted Aardwolf’s Code of Conduct, and will be helping with accessibility features, as well.