Problem Solving

That time I was blocked on a simple problem

There was a time during Sprint 2 that really threw me off. We were tasked to publish a website that was also designed by us. Everything was going fine with the understandable difficulty that I expected until it came to the point where we needed to publish it on GitHub. Suddenly, my website was not working even if it was fine locally.

At first, it was very frustrating that the website I worked very hard on is not getting published. I kept on going back and forth, reading all the instructions in the Dev Academy Handbook, going through my work and not finding out why this was happening. I tried Googling, The Rubber Ducky Method, and Trying something but to no avail.

Eventually, something in my head just wondered if my naming of the files and folders was the cause of the problem. I looked at my GitHub username and files and saw that I have used uppercase letters at the beginning of my files and folders. I went back to google to search if this would have a negative effect on GitHub and it answered me with a resounding YES! The process gave me different feelings, some of joy, some of worry, some of panic, and some of satisfaction. I learned that there are a lot of problems that would throw you off and make you feel like there is no solution to it but not giving up is an important mindset that would lead us to the right direction.

That time I elegantly solved a problem

The problem that I faced this time was connected to the one that I had above. I solved the first problem of finding out what was wrong with my html file. This time, I needed to learn how to change the file names and folder names that I have published on GitHub without needing to delete and publish things again. To solve this problem, I knew that I had to turn to Google.

Initially, I thought that it wouldn't be difficult to find the solution but to my surprise, there hasn't been that much people who encountered the same problem with their files on GitHub. The solutions that I have found were in the very smallest way of being related to what I needed. It took me a while to find out a solution to my specific problem. A video published on YouTube that was not very popular was the one that saved me. This experienced coder was able to explain what to do very simply and concisely that it ultimately helped me get rid of my problem at that time.

My learning for this part was to not give up and keep an open mind. This is very important so that we won't get discouraged as sometimes, we give up without knowing that we are so close to solving our problems. I also learned that lowercase was the way to go on GitHub along with no spaces for our file names.

My confidence in using these problem-solving techniques/processes

• Pseudocode

I am not yet confident in using this technique and I believe that it is something that requires more knowledge of the code itself and needs to be regularly practiced in order to do so easily.


• Trying something

This is a problem-solving technique that I find helps me understand codes better and I find myself doing this regularly.


• Rubber ducky method

I haven't done this technique a lot but I do believe that it is one of the most effective ones for me and this is something that I won't have trouble using.


• Reading error messages

This technique is the latest one that I have discovered. In the past, error messages for me were things that you just close when you see them. I now have learned that these are important and may contain the solutions to the problem.


• Console.logging

I am not yet confident in using this technique as it requires me to play around with it more with a bit more knowledge and understanding of JavaScript.


• Googling

This is my most used one even before I started my Dev Academy Learning journey.


• Asking your peers for help

I am not yet too confident asking my peers for help, especially if I see how far along everyone else is with their work. I try to look for the answers myself first before going to them unless the person is someone really close to me.


• Asking coaches for help

Same with asking my peers for help, I also hesitate asking my coaches as I know that they are busy with their own work. I would value being able to ask them about how things would work but I find that I have too many questions and would take too much of their time.


• Improving your process with reflection

The reflections is what I enjoy the most during Foundations and I have learned a lot through it even if much of the codes haven't entered the learning part of my brain yet. I am comfortable in reflecting and realizing how I feel during my journey.