Daniel Binns is a media theorist and filmmaker tinkering with the weird edges of technology, storytelling, and screen culture. He is the author of Material Media-Making in the Digital Age and currently writes about posthuman poetics, glitchy machines, and speculative media worlds.
75% of the way through an Essentials course in JS, and I can’t wrap my head around the DOM. I get the concept, but the logistics of actually manipulating it are eluding me.
Yes, I realise there are simple syntax solutions to most problems. Variables, functions, arrays, etc, have well and truly sunken in, but the DOM is a wall in which I can’t seem to find a doorway.
Bah.
I’ve found myself frustrated in the last twelve months or so with a few mundane computer tasks that I have to undertake regularly, both for life admin and for work. Things like sorting out variable savings budgets, typing the same sentences over and over again in emails and other correspondence… I have also found myself wanting to play with websites in interesting ways, and am looking forward perhaps to looking at some of the intersections between cinema and code for research. All this — along with an institutional subscription to Lynda — has led me to undertake something of a crash course in programming. My initial efforts are the usual (Hello world, guess my number etc), but it’s enlightening to see how much work goes into the simplest of applications.
Stay tuned…
For those that were concerned, it got better.
A few weeks ago, I asked a colleague how everything was going. He replied, ‘I have too many balls in the air.’
I decided to take it one ball at a time. One ball per day, in fact.
You can realistically only tick one big thing off per day. Anything more, and you’ll drive yourself insane.
Getting to this point was tough going, but it feels good to be here.
Sometimes the gurus get it wrong… it may not be best to ‘mark’ down when you feel like your life is on a trajectory. Since the last blog, the contentedness I felt at managing things vanished.
In its place was left a gaping hole of uncertainty. Doubt. Fear. And most keenly felt of all: a crippling lack of productivity.
Bottom line? I think it’s important to acknowledge what things work and when; it’s also just as important to note when the train has derailed.
Deep breaths. Multiple cups of tea. The train is back on the rails; now carefully re-stoking the boiler.
