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Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,252 PointsSome encouragement please :)
I've been following along this course as closely as I can. Now at this point I think all that's been happening is we've been getting a relatively high level look at what each of the templates are doing and apart from anything else I'm getting familiar with the woocommerce plugin file structure in the same way that I am with a regular word press file structure.
Is it okay though that I'm not fully understanding each of the core files? Some of the things I'm the video do make sense to me, sure but other times I'm just not taking enough in. Is it enough for me to say at this point, yes I'm understanding the file structure and where I need to go to make changes?
Thanks :)
3 Answers
huckleberry
14,636 PointsI have no idea what you're talking about but the answer is a resounding yes, no matter what it is. There's a butt load of information being passed to you at all angles in all these courses and as with anything, our brains handle new things in layers. Our brains understand some things, sort of understand others, and certain things (often a certain many things) our brains go "Pffft... GREEK! To the back burner with ye!" and it takes many times viewing it or looking at it to have that moment where it clicks.
Hell, there're still some things that I thought I understood and to this day, doing another course or watching a different explanation on some video on youtube or some article elsewhere, or while fiddling on yet another codepen or whatever, something I thought I understood pops and I have this huge "ooooh... well, jeez... that's what Guil/Nick/Dave/Andrew/et al. meant!!
Dude, you're a smart guy, I've seen plenty of your answers round these parts and I know you know all that but still, it bears repeating. You're in that phase of learning a whole new architecture or new concept and the old grey matter needs time to piece things together and create those neural pathways before everything can come together and all make sense.
I find myself asking this very question from time to time and I just remind myself... or rather ask myself ... "When you first started learning how to build web pages, did you understand http? Did you understand precisely how the protocol functions and how DNS truly works(and do you even understand that stuff NOW)? No? Did that or does that stop you from being able to build an awesome website? No? How about how absolute vs relative positioning? Remember that annoying little mind blast? Oh... and the box model and that little(read: hugely annoying) margin collapsing quirk. Was it ok that you didn't quite understand those for what seemed like an eternity? Of course it was. You kept going, eventually it clicked later on down the line and that's the story of everything. So suck it up, buckle down and plough forward. The "understanding" is just over that hill."
Either way, whatever your past "Everest" was that you eventually got over, use that as a reminder that this is just a repeat of what you've gone through before. It's tough to remember a lot of the times but man, take a moment and try and think back to the VERY beginning of your journey. Talk about a mess of confusion and "WHAT???". Hell, the way I look at it, if you can make it past the first few weeks of learning about web development, you're rock solid.
I know that got way off the specific topic but, * meh *, that's how I role 
Cheers,
Huck -
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,252 PointsRather than start a new post on the same subject I thought I'd add my comments here for anyone who happens to be following the thread..
I've officially gone into Autopilot with this Woocommerce theme development course. I've stopped following along and I won't be going back through the videos to catch up. This is not a slant on Zac's teaching. Especially not now he's no longer around to defend himself.
I think I'd rather just focus on what he is saying than what he is doing; stressing about following along with his coding. Grabbing CSS files, pausing, adding code etc. I can't keep up.
Mohamed Hak
17,195 Pointssorry to hear that Jonathan, I'm having the same problem, I wonder if you found another alternative to this course or further course to aid you on wordpress development. Hope you share it with us to limit the frustration., and good luck.
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,252 PointsHi Mohamed,
Thanks for your reply.
Here's the thing. I first wrote this thread a few months ago when I was just finishing off the WordPress Development track. In it was the one and only course on WooCommerce was the course linked in this thread; WooCommerce Theme Development. But there was a prerequisite to the course. WooCommerce foundations (or something to that effect). I'm not sure why this course never made it to the track list and I suppose now we'll never know since Zac no longer teaches at Treehouse. Zac Gordon (although his name is selectable still in the forum) :)
But I was faced with a choice. Do I do this course and pause my journey through the track or do I carry on as the track stipulates? I carried on with the track and this may well have been a mistake. I'll be trying the course before too long and see how I go.
But there is also another factor. We all have our working memory, don't we? Mine isn't the best. So I can forget certain things quite easily simply by moving or to a different topic or being distracted by a work project. I'm not neurotypical. Meaning my brain works differently to most other people which makes things even harder for me. That's why I work extra hard on Treehouse. :)
elk6
22,916 PointsI think it might get better down the line when you actually start making a theme. I hope. :P
Yes, it's a bit much. Some challenges or coding along would've been nice. Theres 0 reason to code along at this point.
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,252 PointsJonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,252 PointsHi Huck, thanks for responding to my post. I haven't seen you around in a little while and I do enjoy reading your posts too :)
Yes sometimes I do rewatch a video a second, maybe even a third time. Then maybe sometimes I get the lightbulb moment. haha
I can't wait to finish this Track. Some of the advanced stuff has passed me by a little bit, albeit it's opened my eyes as to what is possible in Wordpress Development. It's a shame Zac isn't around any more because I think he's put a fantastic track together and there's even more Wordpress Courses of his to go through after I'm done.
I have a design in mind I want to convert to my own Wordpress Theme and another for a client Job that I'm customizing. Both of these are pretty daunting at times. :)
There's a lot of stuff going through my brain at the moment that I'm not quite "Getting" including the collapsing margin's stuff you talked about. Guil made a great course that explained all of that and how to fix it... and I understand.... but then I didn't have the time to apply it to some work of my own because of my work (I'm Self Employed) and it's gone. Only basic residual memory remains of what I learned. That's not Guil's fault. It's not even my fault. It's just the way our brains, specially mine work. :)
All the way through when I started Treehouse I was amazed at the quality of the teaching. It enhanced stuff I already knew and opened my eyes to things I'd never seen or considered before.
But going back to Wordpress I've just finished the high level look now at WooCommerce. Now we're about to get started on a "live project" so to speak which sounds exciting. Let's see if some of the stuff Zac was trying to teach has sunk in.
Thanks for your encouragement. Appreciate it, Huck. :)