My project, Does Austin Have “Live Music Capital of the World” Resources, proved to be tricky.
During the project, I had issues with scraping the business listings on the Texas Music Office‘s website due to the fact that they weren’t table data. So I had to do it the old fashioned way, and by that I mean counting. Counting over 6,000 business listings. Now I see why scraping is such a valuable tool and so useful in data journalism.
Even without the ability to scrape I felt like I had a good deal of information to make some evaluations on Austin’s status compared to other major Texas cities. That is until I realized some of these businesses don’t cater to musicians necessarily. Minor road block. I just decided to classify these services as either artist-oriented or resident-oriented services.
Back on track. For a short moment. I realized some of these businesses (i.e. CD/DVD duplicators) weren’t really too relevant anymore due to the digital shift in music. Eliminated that data. Back on track again.
Lastly, I had to admit ignorance on two of the businesses (Recording Studios and Sound Equipment Services) because they catered to more than just the music industry. It would have been too time consuming to see which catered to musicians and which didn’t. I finally had to say “these are the numbers and I’m not sure exactly what they mean and if they are important or not.” Also, I realized the value of middleman when my website went from one page to 20 pages, with the lesson being: use middleman even if you think you’re just designing one webpage because you never know….
As for the class itself, I felt like I never quite got a handle on JavaScript, I knew how to edit it, but now create it or restructure it. I will definitely be practicing it though as I see it’s immense value. It’s hard to say whether its even possible to completely understand JavaScript after one class in one semester. I personally think JavaScript is always going to be a little bit more difficult for me simply because it’s, as Chris Herman put it, “like math with words..”
Another thing that was difficult for me was middleman, but I am teaching myself middleman and Ruby through YouTube because I really want to add it to my coding skills..
All in all, I can’t even begin to say how much I enjoyed this class this semester and how much I learned. Not only that but its made me want to learn more.