I’ve continued to work on my coding skills while I am still at mom’s house (I should have enough money in my bank account tomorrow in order to get home). I have been working on my JavaScript and jQuery skills, so let me share a few things I have done and write some commentary.

A URL Shortener/Expander: I haven’t posted this app on the internet yet - I’ll update this post when I do - but I just created a JavaScript app, through a Codecademy tutorial, for both shortening long URLs and expanded already-shortened URLs. I know I can shorten a URL with bitly.com, but my app takes advantage of the Google URL shortener API. It’s an interesting exercise, and I think I can reuse the JavaScript structure in creating other apps that make use of other APIs. I did, at one point, create a weather app on Codepen (for some reason it no longer works), but this URL shortening/lengthening app works perfectly so far.

NOTE: I have now uploaded this app to my GitHub account, and it is working well. I have added a link to the app both above as well as here.

jQuery Box Toggle: This page, and the next page, are silly examples I created just messing around with jQuery. I think I got the code from the W3Schools site, essentially forking the code from the examples they give for every coding problem they can think of. In fact, here is the basic jQuery code I think I borrowed:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $("button").click(function(){
        $("p").toggle();
    });
});

It doesn’t seem to print in this post as I structure it on a page, but, nonetheless, this is the code.

jQuery Slide Toggle: This is another silly page that shows another way to show/hide elements on a page. I believe this is the code I forked:

$("button").click(function(){
    $("p").slideToggle();
});

Bootstrap Modal: Again, a silly page - I basically just used one doctored photo of Sun Ra for all three pages - that gives an example of a modal created using the Bootstrap HTML/CSS framework. The code I forked for this one is a bit too complex to cite like I have done above, but here is a link to the code as it resides on my GitHub account. No big deal in general, but it is just some fun I have had with coding.

Ultimately, I would like to parley these coding skills into being able to participate in some aspect of the digital humanities. Really, any coding I do related to my academic work can be considered to be a contribution to the digital humanities, but I need to figure out some way to formalize my participation. Probably the best way for me to do this would be to create a substantive website about my work.

I like the idea of creating a site using nothing but my coding skills and a text editor. In fact, I should really work on the GitHub Pages portfolio site I have already created, putting forward a professional portfolio that highlights my work and my skills. That would be the easiest and most honest way to do it.