Stuck at Intermediate Front End Development Projects

Hi everyone, this is my first post here, and i hope you could understand my english (not my 1st language)
I’ve started FCC for about 2 months, and i am also studying a degree of Web’s Development at my country.
I have some knowledge of HTML, CSS and Basic JavaScript (this last one from FCC)
When i had to face some basic projects as the Tribute Page one and the Portfolio Web Page, i could manage and finish them, but now with the Intermediate ones i feel like i need more formation to complete them.

I feel in this way most in terms of JS, because i cant apply the algorithms i’ve learned with the target of the project.

Does anyone feel like this? I would really like to listen some experiences, i am a little lost because i dont know where to practice this “functional” JS from zero.

Yes, it is normal to feel stuck , especially when you are changing levels in the projects. Right now I am stuck going from the API projects to the Dynamic Web App projects in the backend. The whole point is trying to get your self unstuck and through that process, learn more, and compound your knowledge, this is going to go ad inifinitum even after you are done with the “certificates”.
One important thing you can do is break whatever the problem that is keeping you stuck down to the smallest/simplest piece and solve just that piece, and keep building on that. Good luck getting unstuck.

Thank you Dereje, i am going to try my best:) I feel quite motivated, which i think is my best tool for getting unstuck :slight_smile:

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Well English is my first language and I still had problems on those - I can’t even imagine being brave enough to do this in another language. Good for you.

It is very normal to struggle on these. Don’t let it bother you. Really, it’s completely normal.

If you’re having difficulties, search on the forum. I guarantee that whatever your problem is, you aren’t the first to have it.

And then if that doesn’t help, post a question to the forum. Just make the question very specific and show us what you’ve tried and tell us how it isn’t working. If you can link to a pen, that’s even better.

I always say to break the problems into small tasks. If you’re on the quote project, figure out how you’re going to get random quotes and test it to see if it works. Figure out how you’re going to control it with a button, then test it. Figure out how you’re going to send it to the screen, then test it. Figure out how you’re going to tweet and test it. Add some CSS to make it pretty and you’re done.

I usually like to start with the logic (JS) first. I figure out how I’m going to get the logic to work and I worry about making everything pretty later. Sometimes I even do small test programs, just to make sure I can do things. With a lot of the API programs I tested things out in side programs first. Once I know how all the pieces can work, then I start putting them together.

Please let us know if you need any help.

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Thank you so much for your help. As I said, i’m going to try my best, and i will make little tasks from the main target, testing, learning and adding each time more and more.

I feel really confortable here thanks to all of the users that are delighted of helping with anything.

If i need some help with anything in concrete, i will search it here, or i would post the problem at the forum.

Have a good day :slight_smile:

I am also pretty much in the same stage, however after a bit of research and digging deep down the rabbit hole i have come to the following conclusion, FCC is a wonderful and amazing learning tool but i feel the JS section is a little difficult to understand as it doesn’t really go through too much detail as to where you would be implementing your learning until the very end when you are building your projects, so my approach has been to pick up learning and getting better understanding of JavaScript through other resources as well as FCC.

having watched numerous videos and coding along applications or bootcamps has given me a far better understanding of the language and its structure, and when coming back to FCC i can then go through the stages a lot easier and have better understanding of whats required in each challenge.

i am in no way an expert in fact i am super newbie in the field and i am sure others would be able to assist better but this has worked for me so far so i thought i would share my solution in case it is of some sort of help for yourself and people like me too.

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Echoing what others have said it’s often hard enough deciphering solutions from Google with English as a first language, so you’re already showing great determination there.:slight_smile:

One of my first major stumbling blocks had me stuck for 6+ hours searching for why the API call didn’t work on the Quote Machine. I didn’t even have the right vocabulary to search for what I needed, so was frustrated and just messing with syntax and completely unrelated snippets from Stack Overflow.

Really I should have asked for help but was determined to solve it myself. In the end I was idly reading a JS book not even looking for an answer when the I realised what I needed to do. So I would say it’s important to watch videos and read books that cover topics more broadly in your spare time. Certainly this helped me make sense of concepts and draw conclusions outside of the focus of the challenges but also improved problem solving when needed.

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Answering to RGHANILOO and hfmckenna:
Yes, i know that feeling of getting desperated with some bug at the code, I’ve learned Java last year (we arrived until Swing) and it happened to me a lot, especially working with Data Bases.
This two last days I’ve been researching and I’ve found a few books of JS:

Eloquent JavaScript
JavaScript The Definitive Guide

I’m also working with a lot of websites that teach you JS.

P.D.: It feels so good to read that it’s brave to do FCC without English being my first lenguage.
I had a good formation at english since my childhood, but i have to work always with the translator opened in a tab :slight_smile: I always write my vocabulary down and i check it later.

One thing that helps me too is don’t be afraid to take a break from a problem. If you get stuck thinking about coding all day, your brain will run in circles and get no where. There was a problem I couldn’t solve but I had to go to work. In the middle of my shift I just realized what I had to do and when I got home it worked.

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Yeah, I know haha.
I had some great ideas from some projects while trying to sleep, walking around or even at the W.C

I’m in the exact same spot, Dereje1. I finished the API projects alright, which was difficult, but now the difficulty has increased exponentially. I remember the same struggle in the front-end projects going from the Wikipedia Viewer to stuff like TicTacToe.

The fact that it’s difficult and we aren’t cheating means we’re learning and improving. And the next time we run into these problems, we’ll have code we personally wrote to look back on for reference.

Hang in there @OmegaPointZero, I am now finally getting over the hump , but it took a lot of work, there is an information gap between the API projects and the full stack dynamic web apps, while we have learnt everything we need to build the app in the past projects, we are still missing a framework, and to fill that gap I focused on a single full stack framework to bring in all that we have learnt together, I even took a course on such a framework (MERN), and then applied that to one of the simpler projects (recipe), now I am almost finished with the voting app. So choose a frame work, focus on that and you will be done soon.