100 Days Of Code Challenge Review

The 100 days of code challenge was created by Alexander Kallaway in an article posted to freecodecamp.com. It was created as a way to hold oneself accountable to coding every day, by making posts to social media daily including the hashtag: #100daysofcode, documenting briefly what you worked on for each day.

There are certain criteria, or rules, that one must follow in order to go through with the challenge, though these “rules” shouldn’t be taken as concrete, more as guidelines to follow to keep you on track.

I first heard about this challenge from a web developer podcast aimed towards beginners in the field, that goes by the name of CodeNewbies, which I highly recommend to any aspiring web developer. At that time I had been struggling with staying motivated to code daily, whether it be on my side projects, or the Udemy course I was working through. I had just started a new job(non-web-related), and the hours were long, and by the time I made it home, I was drained, physically and mentally.

So I decided that this would be the perfect challenge for me to light the fire and move forward with a new mission. In early March 2018, I began my challenge by posting my daily progress working through one of my favorite Udemy courses of all time: Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele. At this time I was in the second phase of the course which was learning backend technologies by building a web app called YelpCamp with node.js.

I found that I was immediately motivated, and grew to love the accomplished feeling I would receive by diving into my work and sharing what I learned that day by posting on Instagram and Twitter. This huge positive effect on my motivation brought me back to my computer much more often than usual. I finished building that app, and therefore finished that course, about halfway through the challenge.

I immediately began working on a new Udemy course called: PHP7 and Laravel Master Course by Joe Santos Garcia. I was also back and forth working on a couple of freelance client websites in the process.

So I continued documenting every day as I worked on these projects. There were a few times where I might have missed a few days here and there, but I would always start back where I left off and I kept it moving. That is one thing I would say to newcomers of this challenge is that you should take it seriously, and follow the guidelines the best you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day every now and then.

Life happens, and a lot of newbies and self-taught developers trying to enter into the industry have full-time jobs while they try to balance everything. So I would highly recommend this challenge to anyone looking to level up their skills as a way to hold themselves accountable and to increase motivation.

Remember learning web development is a marathon, not a race. Coding a little every day is so much more powerful than coding for hours only one or two days a week. Be persistent, and love every minute of the process!

After I completed the #100daysofcode challenge, I decided to continue and started into the #365daysofcode challenge. I am still currently in progress by posting what I am learning to my Instagram account. You can follow my progress if you would like. My Instagram is called Levelup_dev, click here and follow me.

If you like this type of content, please share it with your friends and leave me a comment down below and let me know about your own experience with this challenge. Sometimes when you are learning a new skill, you can start to become burned out. We have to challenge ourselves with something new to kickstart our progress again, I think this challenge is a perfect example. Give it a try and let me know so I can follow you on your social media. Thanks for reading!