The Guidelines

Checking off a box as a Webstreaker (which just means you are focused on coding and learning web-ness on the daily) is easy, but each easy step will add up to hard work.

You can add to your blog that already exists. You can make a brand new blog. You can finally check out that framework you've heard so much about. You can investigate concepts on Wikipedia and find yourself in places you never thought you would. Maybe visit something different from the normal internet entirely.

Hint: The dat:// protocol is a good place to start with that. See a guy about a browser called Beaker for more info. And if you want something even more in depth, see a guy about the IPFS. They won't disappoint.

Why do it?

Each day you complete this streak, you are acquiring skills that will serve any goal you have in the online space.

To succeed in this, you need not make a website from scratch on your first day of coding! In fact, all you need to do is something small. Add a post to your blog. Download and look through the source of a cool open-source project. Maybe even have a conversation in one of the many discords, forums, and subreddits devoted to helping people learn different varieties of web design!

You can check off a box for any number of things! Here's a few examples:

• Make a cool, quick project using an REPL service like REPLIT or JSFIDDLE.

• See if Humble has one of their fantastic coding book bundles up for grabs. There is rarely a time that a bundle of books regarding some aspect of coding/web development is unavailable. (They are cheap, support just about whatever charity you can dream of, and worth every penny! Highly recommended.)

• If you don't have the money for a balanced learning platform such as CODECADEMY or a subscription to the literal library of all things web development, PACKT, then how about a trip to the old brick & mortar, hometown library? They have a huge selection of books for free, and even reading a single page of one is enough to check off a box in this daily streak!

• Perhaps the best advice out there comes from the horse's mouth, and as horse's go, this one's name is not strange. W3SCHOOLS is essentially the pious, never-a-lie-told cousin of all other informational sites around. When it comes to reliable, practical knowledge on anything you could possibly need to know about making something happen on the internet, there's nothing more to ask for. (At least, for the big name stuff. The specialized frameworks will require their own documentation, which I'll mention later.) It's the Player's Handbook of HTML, CSS, JS, and all the rest. Use it, read it. Even a single link on a single subject clicked is counting to this box being checked. Learning is as important as doing!

• If you are confident in your ability to make a website, or just starting out and feel lost, you need to get ahold of NODE. Node is both a content delivery network with it's package manager NPM, as well as a runtime environment with it's eponymous NODE software. They both come together, and allow you to access, build, and execute javascript outside of a browser! This has more possiblities than the scope of this document, but to start, download Node.js and on completion, run this command in your terminal:

  • npm install -g electron
  • After that, it's as simple as creating and index.html file anywhere on your computer, opening a terminal in that folder and using the command:
  • electron index.html
  • A small window will appear, displaying your webpage just as if it were live on the internet! This is but one of the amazing things you can do with node and you haven't even scratched the surface yet. :)

• As for my final recommendation, I suggest you spend a good few hours on Github. If you know how to use version control, then explore the sea of gists for a surprising time. If you don't know how to use version control, it is an essential step on your journey to being a developer of any kind, and this should be priority one! Heres 4 SCM tools for you to start with:

  • GIT
  • HG
  • If you'd prefer a more GUI experience, I can recommend TORTOISE, which is free!
  • This one has a free version, but I'm talking here about the pro, paid alternative here. This shouldn't be the one you start off with, and use it only if you are willing to forego most of the learning involved in this experience. I don't recommend this for new users because I think it's important to understand version control on a basic level, and this software will take that away from you. Nevertheless, it the most fantastic way to manage any web based or non-web based project, period. For a fair price, you receive one completely streamlined, user-friendly dial up to 11, no terminals in sight sort of squid, the kind you can take home to mama and papa architeuthis. Its none other than the kraken; the GITKRAKEN PRO, of course. I use it myself for larger projects, but stick to regular old terminals for the smaller stuff.

Finally...

These above items are but a handful of the things that you can do to make the day count for the streak of being a daily web developer! Use your imagination, explore, experiment with new projects and languages, and perhaps most importantly, communicate with others. People will serve to help you grow not just through asking for their assistance, but their feedback on your work as well - be that overwhelmingly positive, or resoundingly, harshly cruel - it will teach you something new, there can be no doubt. That's what this streak is about, and really, what any is about. It's growth on a goal by goal basis, because when you look back to see how far you've come, a record will be there for you, and you'll know that no matter what happened, you tried and you made the effort to add to the zeitgeist, to contribute to the global online culture in a meaningful way, and made yourself more knowledgable.

I encourage you all to try this out. You will find something, I promise. Become a #webstreaker

- With Sincerity,

thelibrarian

My Own Frankenstein!