Well, it's Thursday, and I mostly feel like I've not accomplished much this week. Just regular life stuff getting in the way and throwing me off my routine. As such, not a lot of progress to report.
I've not been able to devote real time to tutorials this week, although I did a SQL one, kind of as a refresher, and I loved it. Something that I've been trying to determine is what particularly I enjoy (in terms of skills learned at Prime) and I have to own up to digging database stuff. I resisted admitting that, I guess because librarians, data, how boring. But well, writing SQL queries is super-fun. OMG nerd.
Kind of finished up the library app ... it was actually a bit anticlimactic, although I had an experience that I suspect is something developers encounter often. I spent a fair amount of time working on a filter that would list items checked out by a specific user. Got it working, albeit not quite how I wanted, but then realized it was actually not that great a feature. It had seemed like a good idea, but when I actually had it there to look at, it didn't add any value. It didn't allow me to do something necessary; it was just there to be there. So that was interesting. I took it off. Less is more.
Overall, I'm feeling really discouraged. Everyone has been very positive and helpful and sympathetic re: job search woes, but man, it's the worst. Mostly I'm going to try and finish the week strong, set aside some time to get through the last recommended PHP tutorial tomorrow and then make a fresh start next week. While I was at Prime, I noticed a definite pattern of ups and downs, and I've found that life afterwards hasn't been much different.
Github commits: I missed Sunday. I didn't have something particular to work on, and I was truly feeling the need to not spend time thinking about code. But I've been consistent otherwise; definitely think it's a habit I'm comfortable with at this point. Apparently this sprint ends Tuesday and another starts up? Count me in...
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Thursday, August 04, 2016
Post Script (SO MANY PUNS YOU GUYS)
A note to myself re: things I want to work on. Should have mentioned them in the previous post.
- Changes to RM (solo project). Needs to allow for duplications and multiple dates.
- "Personal" copy of VV(group project) on Heroku. Could be tricksy.
Weekly Update the First
Oh look, a second blog post. That's some rockin' & rollin' right there.
Let's see. When last I wrote, I was committing (ha) to blogging about committing, and I was waiting on a learning schedule from the esteemed SB over at Prime. I was technically not at 100% because of Github's pickiness, but that was okay. It's now been almost a week, so here's what I've been up to!
1. Learning PHP. I'm doing tutorials on Treehouse, and it's been pretty cool. At first I got a little bogged down on the exercises, but what I've decided to do is less following along with the actual coding, and more observing and noting similarities between PHP and the more-familiar Javascript (there are lots). As directed, I have obtained a cookbook and once I'm done with the Treehouse material, I will jump into actual coding. This method (observe now, code later) I think will work better for me in terms of learning and actually maintaining the information.
2. Building an app! This is where the daily commits come in, and I'm still pretty much at 100% (barring the afore-mentioned hiccups). My app is a relatively straightforward full-stack, CRUD operation, similar to our projects at Prime. Express, Node, Angular ... I used SQL because the relational nature made sense, and also for some practice there. If I decide to deploy it to Heroku I'll post a link to it, but for now here's a brief description.
I'm a librarian (once a librarian, always a librarian), and so's my husband. My daughter, who's almost 6, is a total bookworm. We check out tons of books from the public library, and keeping track of them is kind of a pain. We all have our own accounts in the SPPL system that we can log into and check up on, but I only know mine, and if I want to check on my kid's, I have to look up the information, and blah blah blah. SO, I am building an app that allows me to manually (for now) enter item information, save it to a database, and spit it back out as a full list of everything the family's got checked out currently. When we return an item, it can be removed from the database/list. The last two days I've been working on some fun logic using Moment.js that allows me to change the table row of an item to a different color depending on if it's almost due (yellow) or overdue (red). It's pretty sweet, and I'm kind of pumped about it.
Things I want to do with this app further down the road: conceivably re-write it in another language. Hook it up to a barcode scanning app that will allow me to input the barcode and use that as an item's unique identifier. (I was doing that initially, but it's a pain to type barcodes in by hand, so I switched it out for a SQL-generated ID). In a "Samantha's gone crazy hacker" world, I want to figure out how to use a web crawler (??) to actually log into the SPPL system as each member of my family and actually just pull the data straight from there into my app. But we'll see. Baby steps, and whatnot.
Combining the learning of a new language with doing old, familiar work (but with some new stuff thrown in) has helped me to maintain an even keel in terms of not feeling overwhelmed or like I'm starting over from scratch and know nothing. Also, it obviously keeps my hand in on the Javascript side.
All in all, a relatively successful week, coding- and learning-wise. Next week I'll hopefully be jumping in to actually coding in PHP, and maybe digging up a new project to start work on, as opposed to continually tweaking tiny things on my library app.
Stay tuned for week 2 shenanigans!
Let's see. When last I wrote, I was committing (ha) to blogging about committing, and I was waiting on a learning schedule from the esteemed SB over at Prime. I was technically not at 100% because of Github's pickiness, but that was okay. It's now been almost a week, so here's what I've been up to!
1. Learning PHP. I'm doing tutorials on Treehouse, and it's been pretty cool. At first I got a little bogged down on the exercises, but what I've decided to do is less following along with the actual coding, and more observing and noting similarities between PHP and the more-familiar Javascript (there are lots). As directed, I have obtained a cookbook and once I'm done with the Treehouse material, I will jump into actual coding. This method (observe now, code later) I think will work better for me in terms of learning and actually maintaining the information.
2. Building an app! This is where the daily commits come in, and I'm still pretty much at 100% (barring the afore-mentioned hiccups). My app is a relatively straightforward full-stack, CRUD operation, similar to our projects at Prime. Express, Node, Angular ... I used SQL because the relational nature made sense, and also for some practice there. If I decide to deploy it to Heroku I'll post a link to it, but for now here's a brief description.
I'm a librarian (once a librarian, always a librarian), and so's my husband. My daughter, who's almost 6, is a total bookworm. We check out tons of books from the public library, and keeping track of them is kind of a pain. We all have our own accounts in the SPPL system that we can log into and check up on, but I only know mine, and if I want to check on my kid's, I have to look up the information, and blah blah blah. SO, I am building an app that allows me to manually (for now) enter item information, save it to a database, and spit it back out as a full list of everything the family's got checked out currently. When we return an item, it can be removed from the database/list. The last two days I've been working on some fun logic using Moment.js that allows me to change the table row of an item to a different color depending on if it's almost due (yellow) or overdue (red). It's pretty sweet, and I'm kind of pumped about it.
Things I want to do with this app further down the road: conceivably re-write it in another language. Hook it up to a barcode scanning app that will allow me to input the barcode and use that as an item's unique identifier. (I was doing that initially, but it's a pain to type barcodes in by hand, so I switched it out for a SQL-generated ID). In a "Samantha's gone crazy hacker" world, I want to figure out how to use a web crawler (??) to actually log into the SPPL system as each member of my family and actually just pull the data straight from there into my app. But we'll see. Baby steps, and whatnot.
Combining the learning of a new language with doing old, familiar work (but with some new stuff thrown in) has helped me to maintain an even keel in terms of not feeling overwhelmed or like I'm starting over from scratch and know nothing. Also, it obviously keeps my hand in on the Javascript side.
All in all, a relatively successful week, coding- and learning-wise. Next week I'll hopefully be jumping in to actually coding in PHP, and maybe digging up a new project to start work on, as opposed to continually tweaking tiny things on my library app.
Stay tuned for week 2 shenanigans!
Thursday, July 28, 2016
A New Hat
I have never been very good at answering the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question. First of all, who wants to grow up? Second of all, I guess I just don't believe in limiting myself to one activity. Even this blog, to which I am (perhaps?) returning after a long hiatus, would give you an indication of how I tend to bounce from pastime to pastime and idea to idea if you were to scroll back through the archives.
As such, a new (new) beginning. From April to July of this year, I attended a software development bootcamp, called Prime Digital Academy. In a word, it was awesome. I am now entitled to wear the hat of a software developer/engineer/whatever you want to call it, and I hope to obtain a job in the tech field as soon as possible. In the meantime, though, I am participating in a challenge, issued by one SB at Prime, to commit some bit of code, however minute, to Github every day. I've been at it for about a week, and while the record will show a few gaps because of site weirdness, I really have done code and saved code each day. A second part of the challenge involves blogging about my foray into software development, and so here we are. We shall see.
Trying to bring one's own brain up to speed is an interesting exercise. Here's where I'm at: I think I did pretty well at Prime. Not head of the class, maybe, but I feel pretty confident in my abilities at this point (if you know me, you know that's saying something). Graduation was nearly two weeks ago, and in that time I've found re-entry into "normal" life to be somewhat painful. I attach to people hard. I like having structure in my life. Last week I truly felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. This week I'm adjusting more, but still feeling pretty on edge. Trying to apply for jobs, trying to "keep learning" (more on this in a second), trying to figure out what my new routine is, knowing it'll ideally change when I join the ranks of the employed again.
"Learn more." A challenge in its own right, but one that is proving doubly difficult, post-Prime. It's hard to pick a direction. It's hard to know whether you're "doing it right". Mostly, it's hard to duplicate the Prime experience. That's certainly not what I should be trying to do, of course, but the structure is what drew me to the program in the first place. It's what sets Prime apart from just doing tutorials online. Re-enter SB, who has promised me direction, for which I am profoundly grateful. Going forward here, you can expect less background, and hopefully more "Here's what I'm doing today/this week" once I have some direction. Make no mistake, you'll still get blather (again, have you met me?) but perhaps more constructive blather. In the meantime, onward. I haven't committed yet today...
As such, a new (new) beginning. From April to July of this year, I attended a software development bootcamp, called Prime Digital Academy. In a word, it was awesome. I am now entitled to wear the hat of a software developer/engineer/whatever you want to call it, and I hope to obtain a job in the tech field as soon as possible. In the meantime, though, I am participating in a challenge, issued by one SB at Prime, to commit some bit of code, however minute, to Github every day. I've been at it for about a week, and while the record will show a few gaps because of site weirdness, I really have done code and saved code each day. A second part of the challenge involves blogging about my foray into software development, and so here we are. We shall see.
Trying to bring one's own brain up to speed is an interesting exercise. Here's where I'm at: I think I did pretty well at Prime. Not head of the class, maybe, but I feel pretty confident in my abilities at this point (if you know me, you know that's saying something). Graduation was nearly two weeks ago, and in that time I've found re-entry into "normal" life to be somewhat painful. I attach to people hard. I like having structure in my life. Last week I truly felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. This week I'm adjusting more, but still feeling pretty on edge. Trying to apply for jobs, trying to "keep learning" (more on this in a second), trying to figure out what my new routine is, knowing it'll ideally change when I join the ranks of the employed again.
"Learn more." A challenge in its own right, but one that is proving doubly difficult, post-Prime. It's hard to pick a direction. It's hard to know whether you're "doing it right". Mostly, it's hard to duplicate the Prime experience. That's certainly not what I should be trying to do, of course, but the structure is what drew me to the program in the first place. It's what sets Prime apart from just doing tutorials online. Re-enter SB, who has promised me direction, for which I am profoundly grateful. Going forward here, you can expect less background, and hopefully more "Here's what I'm doing today/this week" once I have some direction. Make no mistake, you'll still get blather (again, have you met me?) but perhaps more constructive blather. In the meantime, onward. I haven't committed yet today...
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