E3 Performing WODs Technical Essay

18 Feb 2021

Introduction

For our fifth assigned WOD we were tasked to complete and code an invoice. More information regarding the WOD can be found here.

Reflection

I started this WOD similarly to how I usually approach these assignments; completing it in its entirety without timing myself. I don’t watch or refer to the screencast until I know that I am absolutely at a loss. On my own, I got up to right coding the table. After pasting the code for the table into my own document, I completely forgot how to set it up so that I could reference the variables listed in the beginning. At that point, I resorted to watching the screencast and following along with it so that I could get a better understanding of what was being asked and how to properly do it. The whole process of completing the WOD in its entirety and ensuring I fully grasped the content took about 30 minutes. I then attempted to record but I ran into a small bump on the road. I accidentally put the document.write closing parenthesis and semi-colon before the </tr> tag. It was a mistake that could have easily been corrected but I was thrown off and just started over. Aside from that, everything went smoothly. Personally, it really helps to do the whole WOD and finishing it without a the stress of a timer winding down. Then when I understand the material, that’s when I record. With this method, I am usually able to complete the WOD in the Rx time on my second or third try. It also helped that we did something very similar to this recently for one of our labs. For this WOD in particular, I had trouble with where to place certain things like my aforementioned mistakes but after catching the things I did wrong, it was smooth sailing from there.

Preparation

To prepare for this WOD and the other WODs that we’ve completed, I study the included picture of how everything should look at the end so I have a basis of what I need to do. Then I set up my desktop so that I have all my windows open in a manner that none of them overlap and I can see everything I need to (timer, VSCode, localhost window, and the instructions). Before I actually do the recording, I make sure to re-read the instructions so I know that I understand everything that I was tasked to do.

Area of Improvement

One thing that I noticed I could have done better or I could have approached better is my preparation for the WOD. For example, I think that it would be very helpful for me next time to throughly read the instructions before attempting the WOD at all. Doing so would probably decrease the time it takes for me to complete it the first time. Currently, I would just look at the picture before hand and only read the instructions as I go along. Next WOD, I will definitely try this method and compare the difference in my performance.