The 1st 7 days in #100DaysOfCode

I started doing the #100DaysOfCode Challenge last weekend. If you aren't familiar with it, there are only 3 rules:

1. Spend at least 1 hour a day in the code
2. Tweet out your progress
3. Encourage 2 other people doing the challenge with likes or retweets or other kind words

I decided I would theme my 100 days around the topic of #Bots - I didn't want to be too strict about it, and I wanted to be sure I would get a chance to explore stuff outside my usual stack - so, I will be building bots on #Google and on #AWS as well as #Microsoft #Azure

But I'll do some #PowerApps and I'll do some #IOT too. I'll get some real, physical robots and learn to program them. I definitely wanted to do some #Python - because that's the language I started learning this year, but I'm open to using other coding languages too - #LUIS will undoubtedly be part of it, because that is a language commonly used with chatbots and #AI

What I learned in the 1st 7 days:

1. There is a lot of prep work before you can even begin to code. Setting up your #Github account, learning to Fork, Clone, Merge, Commit. Install Visual Studio Code. Install Python. Install Powershell, .net etc. Set-up an Azure subscription etc. And it's confusing, and off-putting, and easy to get lost in the pages and pages of documentation.

One thing you can do today is register for a free account on GitHub and start learning how to use it. These courses are easy and step-by-step:

2. It's much easier to follow a tutorial or a course than it is to try and just learn how to do stuff by reading the docs. I got pretty frustrated on Day000 until I asked someone on #Twitter to recommend a Python Bot Tutorial - and then I had a path, a structure, and some visible progress to enjoy.

Try this Chatbot tutorial, where you can build a bot that searches a FAQ and provides answers to questions on it:

3. Chain your tweets, so that at the end of the 100 days, you'll have a thread you can follow back to day 001 (or day 000 if like me, you are being Pythonic about the challenge) - and when you record your progress - talk about what you could not do, and how you solved it. I think when I look back on Day 100, I'll be amazed at what a n00b I was, and how obvious everything seems from that perspective. I already think it at the end of the first week.

I really recommend you try the challenge, no matter what level you are at. I no many begginers start here and use the freecodecamp.org courses to learn Front End Web Development. But I also heard of someone building 10 Apps in 100 days and writing a course on that. A couple of coders, one a begginer and one advanced worked on a project to build apps together and both wrote what they learnt from their perspectives - thus helping begginers and experts alike. Another person created an entire magical universe, somewhat like <but for copywrite purposes completely different> from the Harry Potter world.

This is the website for more information if you'd like to join. There is no fixed start date, you join the 100days at any point in the year, and finish 100 days later:

I hope you'll join me on my journey, and we can learn together :-)

Michelle Sandford works for Microsoft. She is the Chairman of the Australian Computer Society in WA, a Tedx Speaker, a Tech Girl Superhero and one of MCV's 50 Most Influential Women in Games. You can follow Michelle on LinkedIn for her articles; on Twitter for events, interesting shares and occasional commentary in 140 characters, Facebook to see where she is presenting next, YouTube for Video's and Instagram for the life of a Microsoftie in photographs.