Katemonkey (In Most Places)

JavaScript Programming Fundamentals, Day 1 – Getting Started

Out of the giant pile of courses I have in AI Automation for n8n, Python, and Modern Workflows course bundle I have, I decided to start with the Python refresher. I figure that'll help me remember what it is before I get into more detailed stuff.

Before I got this course, I hadn't heard of n8n. Its website does suffer from too much jargon and not enough actual content, but it basically lets you connect a bunch of different things to build out fancy workflows, including AI chatbots.

I doubt I'm actually going to include an AI chatbot in, like, most of my stuff, but I do like how I can take large quantities of data and process it through n8n automatically.

But, first, I need to refresh my Python skills. I know it's only been, like, a month, but I am a very forgetful person. It will do me good to go through it again.

7-hour Python Programming Fundamentals for n8n

The course starts with "Submit a Question/Feedback". This is entirely the wrong place for it, because I haven't even started the course.

Python Introduction

Oh hey, this instructor is the dude who did a huge chunk of the other Python course.

Oh.

It's the exact same course.

Never mind.

12-hour JavaScript Programming Fundamentals for n8n

Welp, looks like I'm learning JavaScript instead. Which, actually, I suppose I do need to learn at some point.

I'm kind of amazed that they say this is a 12-hour course, when the curriculum looks like this:

I mean, okay, I can blitz through most of the HTML and CSS stuff, but, really? 127 videos in 12 hours? That means, like, nearly 11 videos per hour. Are all these videos really less than 6 minutes long, especially since the freakin' Mammoth Club intro takes, like, a good 5 seconds right off the top? Not to mention the "Thanks for watching" 5 seconds at the end as well.

But, hey, let's go through the Introduction to HTML and get that sorted.

01 — Introduction to HTML

There's a quiz at the end of this. I should not love quizzes as much as I do. I immediately revert back to six-year-old smug little smartass me, and go "I am going to get SUCH a good grade in HTML".

This is apparently based on a one-hour HTML course, so I expect it's going to rush through the important stuff. But this is definitely for complete beginners. I appreciate what the instructor is doing, he's really explaining things and getting into why you do things. Which is nice.

These are all astoundingly short videos, roughly around 3 minutes each, so no wonder everything can get done in an hour.

I don't know about including the <i>, <b>, and <u> tags, though. I mean, why not include <font> while you're at it.

(I kid, I kid. He showed how you can use the style attribute instead. Woo, font-family: Impact. Living the dream there, kids.)

Things that are lovely:

Things that I am annoyed by:

The Doom Guy Meme, where a soldier in Doom is fighting demons. At the bottom it says "Where is the Alt Text?" because the Doom Guy believes in proper image accessibility.

Really, there's nothing in here I don't already know. Shoot, I've been writing HTML since 1995, so while you can teach an old dog new tricks, basic HTML is not one of them.

The quiz pissed me off, though.

The HTML Quiz, where I match up HTML with its name.

Can you guess where?

The HTML Quiz, where I have chosen "HTML Tag" to match with "p" but am being told that is incorrect.

THAT IS AN HTML TAG, HOW DARE YOU.

Apparently, no, you're supposed to pair the <p> with HTML Elements and the <h1> with HTML Tags. How dare you. How dare you do this to me. Try to give me a failing grade on this, swear to god.

02 — Introduction to CSS.

This is a one-hour CSS course. I am obviously not going to go through each and every video, I'm going to skip through most of it and only point out things that annoy me.

And it starts by calling < and > "triangle brackets". What? Why are you calling them that?

God, I bet you go "curved brackets" (()) too. Swear to god, I'm going to start calling everything by its Unicode name.

The things you learn when you're mad at something, huh?

Also, he's putting all the styles directly into the HTML. Noooo, teach people proper CSS from the start, not

<h1 style="color: orange; background-color: black; 
font-family: Impact; font-size: 50px">Mammoth Interactive</h1>

Painful. So painful.

I mean, okay, he does take it to the CSS to show that you can get the exact same formatting, just in a separate file that has

h1 {
  color: orange;
  background-color: black;
  font-family: Impact;
  font-size: 50px;
}

But I think I really would have preferred he showed the proper CSS structure from the start.

I have to admit, I didn't remember some of the font-family variations. It was mostly serif, sans-serif, and monospace.

I don't think I'll have much use for cursive or fantasy, but, hey, if I ever need to troll someone, font-family: fantasy is a good start.

I also can't quite get with using rgb() for colour values. I know, I know, it's more precise, but I also spent most of my time with the "There are only 256 HTML colours, you need the hex codes", so I'm kinda old-fashioned that way. 0 to 9, A to F, live the dream.

He seems to be mostly teaching CSS as a way to style text, rather than style the page, but, to be fair, I am skipping through it pretty quickly. Definitely focusing on styling the actual tags, not bringing in a bunch of <div>s, like Bootstrap would.

It is feeling very 2010, especially with the design he's doing:

Screenshot of the site being designed in CSS in an Hour, which is one-column, coloured backgrounds, and a giant image in the background of that.

That takes me back woo boy.

The quiz is a matching game, which I am not good at, because if I'm not completely focused, I will forget what's where, but at least the questions aren't too painful.

Screenshot of the answers for the CSS quiz, which includes questions like "what property is used to change the colour of the text?"

Day 1 — Results

Tomorrow, I'm starting the JavaScript course. I think it's the same dude, it'll be about an hour with really short videos, and I figure, eh, what the hell, give me some of that 2010 JavaScript so I know what not to do.

Today's Sticker

A sticker for the store EMP, which has a hand making the devil's horns gesture.

This sticker came today with my EMP order, so although the sticker is boring, my brand-new Magikarp swimsuit is not.

AW YEAH MAGIKARP.

#kate learns javascript #kate learns python #kate learns web development #programming