Week 8
BEST PART OF THE WEEK:
API Project
I feel my favourite parts of the week are consistently assignment based, that's because it's the perfect opportunity to unleash my creativity while building my skills on what we've recently learnt. I decided to use the Google Books API to build a site dedicated to searching book titles. Once searching the title, a plethora of books would fill the screen, each clickable to unveil detailed information. The finished project came out really well.
WORST PART OF THE WEEK:
Giving peer feedback.
While I feel I'm good at providing constructive feedback, focusing on the positives and offering one point they can work on or wouldn't have thought of, this week did pose some issues. Unfortunately I couldn't review completed projects from everyone so my feedback may have been harsher than intended.
3 NEW FACTS:
- Mounting Phase - ComponentDidMount - when a component first renders
- Updating Phase - ComponentDidUpdate - when an update is made in a component
- Unmounting Phase - ComponentWillUnmount - when a component is no longer shown
PROBLEM I SOLVED:
During the API project, my initial vision was to have the individual books displayed in multiple colours or even resembling miniature books. However, after thorough research to achieve this aesthetic, I found the result wasn't quite what I'd envisioned and surprisingly I preferred the simpler look of plum coloured boxes. The readabilty of titles and authors improved, and the overall look was cleaner. Reverting back to my original idea may have seemed like a waste of time, I do feel the process was valuable as I still learnt through practical application, even if the code went unused.