When music and code collide
So, if you have been reading my few and far between posts on here, you know that I complain a lot (lol) and that I am trying to find a layman's friendly version of learning that Holy Grail language that is Javascript. I have been making a semi-tutorial repository on Github of the parts and pieces that I have managed to learn via various tidbits that I find on my umpteen million tabs (only 14 today!) and yesterday I had a great day. Even though I hate watching videos to aid in my learning because most of them go way too quickly, and I end up more confused then when I started, I never-the-less looked for "Simple Javascript Tutorials". I clicked the search button and was prepared to be disappointed.
I wasn't.
I found a video by a channel called, " Frank's laboratory" and in the video he was teaching how to make audio visualizers in an hour. Warily, I clicked on it, dreading the accent, what the code entailed, how soon I would be getting frustrated, you know, the normal day in learning this stuff lol.
His accent wasn't that bad, I could fully understand what he was saying and dare I say it, it was actually kind of calming....weird, I know. (I never claimed to be normal).
He didn't throw a bunch of code at me that I didn't know. He literally started from the ground up, creating the HTML page (I know that stuff!), adding the CSS (Hey, I know that too!), and then adding the JS step-by-step, explaining exactly what he was doing, what the code that he was writing was going to do, how the finished line of code was supposed to look in real time, and best of all....it was in plain, everyday wording! I followed along with my Notepad++ (I do like the bells and whistles of VS Code, but it's a lot heavier on my poor laptop), and after about 100 times pausing the video, wishing I had another screen so that I didn't have to split-screen the browser and Notepad++, and of course a few user errors, (yes, I can and do admit when I make a mistake) I was able to make the audio visualizer that he made in his video. I am still on the mental high that I accomplished that. I even broke his lesson up into 3 parts on my Github so that I can go back to it later and others can learn if they want, and was actually not embarrassed to add it on my CodePen . (since my other stuff looks...well, to put it honestly, pretty crappy lol)
I will definately be trying his other videos because I can't wait to see what else I can make under his instruction. For once, I'm actually looking forward to working with Javascript!
Thank you Frank's laboratory !
Cover Photo by Vika Chartier on Unsplash