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My name is Mason Ellwood, and I’m currently working on Flatiron School’s Online Full Stack Web Development Program. Each week, I’ll be writing about my experience, what I’m learning, and tips on learning to code.

At work, like all things I have encountered large and small issues, but that is like all things. But I have been reflecting a lot with my role in the company and how to best perform in my front-end developer role at Fyresite.

So I have been at this company now for roughly 6 weeks and almost all my energy has been directed at one project, Prepass. They build electronic tolling software for truckers, and my role is to write out the functionality of the site, with one other coworker Paul. This has been a crash course for me, diving head first into WordPress, php, html, css, ajax, and javascript. But this post is not so much about the languages I have used, but more how I have began to approach the challenges of building out this site.

When I first began at Fyresite, I was given access to the sketch doc that included all the designs for the pages that I was in charge of building out. Which after a few weeks I was closer and closer to having a working model of the site. But constantly I was met with having to add functionality and everything I had built needed to be altered in some way. So the hours are stacking and stacking, having to constantly rebuilding what I had made, because it didn’t quite include all the functionality that the client was asking of me. This left me with a lot of frustration having to basically start over on some major pages on the site.

I have since completed the projects that were asked of me, but I am slowly learning to really take my time and pour myself into thinking a lot about what the client may also want with what a simple sketch mock may include. Programming for the future rather than what is immediately asked of me so the product is amenable dynamic enough so that I won’t have to build for future problems that the client may want. Build for their needs, not the immediate needs that I see to quickly complete the project. Thinking about programming in this way, will save me inmens time in the future and make the transition to handing the client a final project easier.

This has translated a lot into how I view my lessons with The Flatiron School. Being able to see how something may have to work for the future, rather than what I need it to do to complete a task.

In school, I have finally begun the javascript course and I couldn’t be having more fun. Not only is it making my life so much easier at work, but it makes learning so much greater with a goal of application.