Now that CS50P is done and this site has been updated with backdated posts, time to move onto the next Harvard course, CS50Web (Programming with Python and Javascript). This course goes over how to create fullstack web applications using Python, Django, and Javascript. At first glance, the course appears to possibly take less time to complete since there are fewer weeks, but there are more medium sized projects to complete to be scored rather than smaller problem sets per week. Each project needs a screen recording, edited, uploaded to Youtube, and timestamps added per project requirement. Luckily, got to practice this workflow from the CS50P final, but now will have to repeat it six times over for each project and the final.
The first project assigned for the course wasn’t too exciting, practicing HTML and CSS to create a Google search page mock with a search bar that will redirect to the real Google search. Not only did it need to include the main search bar, but also redirect to the proper image search, advanced search, and “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Once finished, the submission steps were a bit confusing, recorded the steps and uploaded the video and took three weeks to get a score. All went through and moved onto the next section!
Not every week has a project, but it ramped up pretty quick from setting up somewhat simple webpages to building applications with Django, a web application framework for Python. I’ve helped out with the non-profit Django Girls in the past as an attendee and coach, but it’s been a few years! Getting used to what needs to be done to get a project setup and file structure was a little bit of a learning curve and trying to remember where what went where, especially tricky when trying to debug confusing errors. We were provided some boilerplate code and tasked to create a Wiki of sorts where entries can be added, edited, and searched right in the browser. This one took nearly a month to complete primarily due to having some trouble Googling for help or how to accomplish something when I was stuck, but the search results from 5 or 10 years ago can appear, and even a few years ago have out of date documentation information.
See below for some screencaps of the project and requirements, no fancy styling here 😛
Wiki was submitted this week and I’ve have reviewed most of the the next lecture notes to learn and practice using models, SQL, and how to use Django Admin. It’ll be much easier to search for answers when models are included since Wiki did not but the mention appeared in search results frequently.
— H