I honestly didn't think that the societal pressures of posting daily--not that anyone's really policing--will make me be serious about coding my one hour per day. And if I'm going to be even more honest, I have been logging 2 to 4 hours daily instead of one. I'm enjoying coding in Python too much. It's a different kind of high compared to the effect of a good session of pole-dancing, with neither being better than the other. I just love expanding the things I can do with it.

To anyone who's wondering, no, I didn't start from scratch. I learned the basics of Python several years ago, also last year, and then I took a refresher early this year. Yes, I took the beginner classes twice before but never really got the will to move forward. 

This is where I'm positive that the #100DaysOfCode challenge really helps. After I passed the basics portion of this current course, I realised I've been pulling around two hours or more to apply the things I have learned. So last week, I decided to just take the plunge and not really overthink this.

Apart from making the 10 Python apps that are included in learning Python, I have also been actively creating my own programs as another way to exercise my brain. 

In the past week, I ended up creating my own Weather app that sends me a text message of the weather in Celsius, and just now a web map program that retrieves data of eateries/food carts from the New York City website and plots it into a map. Two very simple applications that have real-life, practical use. 

Weather App that texts me

Web App that loads all the eateries and food carts from the NYC Parks and Recreation website

After I finished App #2 from my course, I chose between sleeping or giving this personal project a headstart. It was late on a Sunday, and as bad impulsive decisions go, of course I chose to tinker with this. I must say though, it's great that the US and New York, in general, have data repositories for just about anything under the sun. Alas, I didn't really get a chance to prep and cleanse the data. While this web mapping program is working, it's not as fast as it should be. I'm flagging this as another WIP so I can improve the runtime and to add more information variables.\

For this app, I used folium (for mapping), Nominatim (for geocoding), and got the data from the New York City Parks and Recreation department website.

Facts derived from this exercise
Number of food carts/eateries with permit: 237
Number of properly maintained addresses for these permits: 114 

My biggest frustration from coding in SAP ABAP in my former career life was that the programs I was creating mostly helped corporations. The programs I used to create revolved around Finance/Accounting/Sales and Distribution/HR/Materials Management (you see, even typing this severely bores me) and at the end of the day, I'm still just helping solve a corporation's bottom line, with a very minuscule impact.

Rant aside, I'm excited to be on this current path. At the rate I'm going with 2 applications (of 10) per week, I will likely finish the course in 4 weeks. By then, I'd need to either do personal projects or take another course. Suggestions are welcome!