Am I cheating myself by using code snippets such as bootsnip for elements of my builds?
I am intermediate in my coding ability at this point, and sometimes I feel like I am in information overload, but I am also hungry to know how to do it all.
Should I struggle through and write it all from scratch at this point in the game? Or, should I work with the assumption that my knowledge will increase and evolve with time and experience and use snippets to make it easier on myself now?
I don’t think it is cheating. But, I would encourage you to look at the code snippets and try to understand them and also try to remake them. This will absolutely improve your skills and also make it easier to modify/style the snippets
Absolutely not! The difference between a beginner programmer and a senior programmer is the time it takes them to solve problems and write new code. As you use google to search for solutions to problems that you are having, you will find that you understanding of what somebody else posted will greatly improve over time. Eventually you will get to the point where somebody had a problem kinda similar to yours and that you are able to adept their code to your situation.
As a beginner, I have asked myself this question a few times myself. Especially since the first front end projects say not to look at the example code! I agree with BenGitter, try to understand what you are using as well as just using it!
One “austerity” that I feel has helped me with Java: I started coding for my classes with Dr. Java, and this last semester had a goal to learn Eclipse since I know it’s a more powerful IDE. I did, but ended up going back to Dr. Java because I felt that using a simpler IDE had actually forced me to learn more. Eclipse is easier, but having to really understand the error codes instead of the IDE telling me has helped immensely (imo).
I don’t think it’s cheating per se. If FCC wanted us to be coding everything from scratch it wouldn’t be teaching Bootstrap & jQuery which already take care of a lot of CSS/JavaScript for you. But I agree with previous replies that you should study the code so that you can customize it and remove any unnecessary portions that create “code bloat” or cause undesired side effects. Also if you plan to apply for coding jobs like many people here you will probably be asked to explain in detail how certain elements & techniques work.
