Continued my web security studies. Now that I finally understand how the library works I can move forward with the tutorial playlist to see how it is implemented. I am aiming to finish the videos tomorrow and hopefully wrap up this section of the web security content on The Odin Project.
I have the dilemma of wanting to keep moving forward while also not wanting to rush. I spent A LOT of time trying to understand how the PassportJS framework worked and now it feels like I have been standing still for a long time. I have been working through this web security section for more than 20 days now! I did not think I would progress at this snail pace prior to starting the section, but at the same time, I knew there were a lot of side topics I needed to cover.
What I have found out about my learning style, is that I am very inquisitive. As soon as I am introduced to a topic I will have a thousand questions surrounding it’s main concepts and the peripheral material that helps to support the core information being presented. So in this case, the course only provided me an example authentication project to implement and some videos to watch. I took that and produced a thousand questions that I needed to be answered immediately. These questions might have been answered further in the course but I struggled to move forward when so much fundamental information was left for later. So this means that my challenge comes with outpacing the curriculum and slowing myself down. Maybe I should just stick to the course curriculum and circle back to my additional questions. I am just less engaged when I take that approach because as I push forward I absorb less but get exposed to the entire scope a lot faster. I will keep tweaking my approach to see what help improves my pace while maintaining my level of comprehension with the material.
TLDR;
Okay, so here are the highlights of what I did:
- Backend -> Continued studying the concepts mentioned in the web security section. Continued to go through the videos in the PassportJS playlist. About halfway through the material. It all makes sense now.
Goal For Round 8 of the #100DaysofCode Challenge
This is my eighth round of the “#100daysofcode” challenge. I will be continuing my work from round five, six, and seven into round eight. I was working through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. My goal was to become more familiar with algorithms and data structures. This goal was derived from my goal to better understand operating systems and key programs that I use in the terminal regularly e.g. Git. This goal was in turn derived from my desire to better understand the fundamental tools used for coding outside of popular GUIs. This in turn was derived from my desire to be a better back-end developer.
I am currently putting a pause on the algorithm work to build some backend/full stack projects. I primarily want to improve my skills with the back-end from an implementation perspective. I have improved tremendously in terminal and CLI skills but I lost focus due to how abstract the algorithm concepts got. I wanted to work on things that were more tangible until I can get to a position where I could directly benefit from improving my algorithm skills and theoretical knowledge. So that’s the focus right now. Build my backend skills and prove my full stack capabilities by building some dope projects.
Again, I still have no idea if my path is correct but I am walking down this road anyways. Worst case scenario I learn a whole bunch of stuff that will help me out on my own personal projects. Best case scenario I actually become one of those unicorn developers that go on to start a billion dollar company… You never know LOL.