Thing 17: Coding

Coding, eh?  It's funny - when I was in 7th grade back in 1984, I was in an advanced track of courses, and was somehow put in a beginning coding class with several of my other nerdy-smart classmates.  What I remember most was being given graph paper and instructed to sketch out my program in zeroes and ones.  In the end, I designed a weird little pirate pistol that shot a lead ball and maybe said "BANG".  Hey - in 1984 that was pretty impressive for a 12 year old!!

Given this impressive background (ha ha), when I read "Coding" for this assignment, I figured, why not?  Besides, my husband happens to be a coding guru, so I figured if I was too overwhelmed by this assignment, I could always count on him to talk me through it.  That said, after some preliminary exploration, I realized that I was underestimating how easy some websites make this!  No need for graph paper :-)

Unfortunately, though, I must sadly admit that I failed in my original goal for this assignment.  

I scanned through several of the resources listed in this assignment, and when I saw the movie poster option, I thought: Eureeka!  Of course I assumed I would be clever enough to transform it into what I actually wanted - a poster for an upcoming author visit I have scheduled for the end of the month. 

After reading through Mozilla Thimble's easy instructions, I realized all I had to do was cut portions of "code" out of the set template and enter my new text and graphic.  Honestly, I had expected more flexibility with the program.  But I had already started, so I went ahead and finished it.  I pulled in a gorgeous photo a friend had emailed me a few weeks ago and had fun dreaming up my cast and crew.  However, the hardest part was finding a way to insert the image in this blog!  I played with the web link Mozilla gave me, but it would only insert a text link.  Then I Googled how to create a thumbnail, and spent probably twice as much time finding a program to successfully do that than I spent "coding" the actual project!  I ended up using ScreenGrab, which I think is also a Mozilla appplication.

Anyway, here's my poster.  It may not be animated like my nifty pirate gun of yore, but it sure looks a lot better!!  In all seriousness, though, I'm hoping to wade through more of this assignment at a later date to see if there is something I could use to generate cool graphics in the future.  But for now, this will have to suffice for my second foray into the mysterious world of coding...