Every Dev Should Do 100DaysOfCode

Why I think every developer should accept the challenge to code for 1 hour, for 100 days. I've been participating for about 30 days, and I wish I would have done it (years) sooner!

What is 100DaysOfCode?

At it's core, it's a commitment to code for 1 hour for 100 days.

First, I'll say the official rules are at 100daysofcode.com if you want to check them out, but I'll summarize them here for you.

• Tweet the hashtag #100DaysOfCode to commit to the challenge
• It is recommended that you read this article to familiarize yourself with the purpose of the challenge.
• Make a rough plan for what you want to build during your challenge time
• Code for 1 hour a day for the next 100 days, and tweet your progress using #100DaysOfCode to encourage yourself and the community

If you actually read the article above they mention that they were NOT counting time following tutorials as part of their completion of the challenge. I have not applied that to my challenge, as I learn well from structured formats, especially in unfamiliar territory I've never touched in depth, like android.

Use the rules above as guidelines to tailor the best experience for you and your learning style, and have some fun with it! This primarily for you anyway. For example, I take a day off here and there to refresh my mind, but I get right back to it the next day. (I've got kids, an amazing wife, and real life to take care of too, can't always be coding, right?)

Challenge Benefits

I highly recommend all developers to accept the challenge, or a shorter version if 100 days is just too much, I'll leave that up to you. But commit, push forward, and learn! I've also connected with many developers that have also accepted the challenge on Twitter. The community on there is amazing, and very supportive!

The reason I wish I would have done this years ago, is because I was really feeling stale in my webdev position. I wasn't learning much anymore because all the tickets coming through felt the same day after day. But I was comfortable, so I didn't mind too much, but I should have. I knew I wanted more, I was hungry to learn, but I just didn't do anything about it. Accepting this challenge is keeping my inner developer entertained and curious about new technology, I love it!

Benefits

• Learn New Skills
• Develop Habit of Learning
• Time management
• Opportunity to experiment in code (outside of work)
• Networking with other challengers

My First 30 Days

In my career, I've been a web developer the whole time. I worked in the traditional LAMP stack for multiple years. Just recently, I've moved to a position using primarily javascript using React and a node back-end. Because I won't get asked to create an android app at work, I chose to learn android on my own during the challenge, and to learn kotlin along with it. Kotlin is apparently the choice for android development now.

I have been enjoying this challenge WAY more than I thought I would. It has taken my free time, and transformed a piece of it into productive developer time where I sharpen theoretical blade of skills every single day. Thirty days ago, I had never touched the kotlin programming language, and for the most part had not really touched android either. It's been multiple years since I've really done anything with Android. So I could just say that prior to the challenge I've "never" developed for the android platform... It was only during a school course, and used Java instead...

Anyway, now I'm using both of those technologies daily, and I'm creating small little apps just for fun! In particular, outside of tutorials I'm following, I created a small little app in an attempt to help me generate a new username. It was done in android using kotlin, applying everything I'd learned up to that point. It feels so cool to hold a phone that is running code that I wrote in my hands. I'm kind of getting addicted to the fact that my phone can be utilized for my designs! (...excellent...)

Is it a good addiction though?... I think so!

Looking Forward to Days 31 - 100

Most of my time so far has been spent in tutorials, but I learn really well that way. I have a very well structured tutorial created by Google that I'm following on Udacity to learn best practices for the android platform. I don't think I'll just happen to find the best practices that they're sharing on my own, so I'm going to continue all the way through it. Good exposure to best practices is priceless, and will help me in the long run.

One thing I will change as I go further into the challenge is to go tutorial free, like the original challenger did. I have a few ideas brewing and I'm looking forward to building more things of my own design, and encountering my own unique issues that I have to work through.

This has been a GREAT experience, I highly recommend, 10/10 I will do it again.