DEV Community: Alfonso Pruneda

First thoughts on Three.js

Alfonso Pruneda — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 04:34:10 +0000

Just started messing with three.js after taking an interest in 3D animation through the web. So far, it's been really fun figuring out the shapes and how to consider perspectives, camera angles and lighting when displaying objects. If anyone has considered using something like WebGL but maybe wants to try something a little bit easier, three.js is definitely the way to go!

Deploying a Rails Backend Project to Heroku

Alfonso Pruneda — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 06:08:47 +0000

This post is to try and help those that might be struggling to deploy your first few rails projects and some tips to avoid any unnecessary problems that may happen as you try to deploy.

Week 12 at Flatiron School Bootcamp

Alfonso Pruneda — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 19:09:58 +0000

I haven't really talked about my experiences thus far going through a coding Bootcamp so I wanted to go ahead and do that as I'm preparing to get ready for my 3-week long project. If you haven't heard about or don't know what a coding bootcamp is, it's basically a school that focuses on showing others over a short period of time (in my instance, that would be 15 weeks) on specific subjects and getting them ready to work in that field. Typically these fields are either web development, software engineering, data science, UX/UI design, and more recently, cybersecurity. If that's something that interests you, I would definitely recommend seeing if there are any near you and talking to them directly to get a better idea of what you're looking for. I'd also be happy to answer any questions you may have!

Alright, back to the topic at hand.

Starting at Flatiron was a pretty big decision for me, because it's basically my last chance without having to worry about financial hardships. For some, it might not be the case, but I'm relying heavily on this program to be able to get a job in the near future. So because of this, I'm doing all that I can to learn as much as possible. In all honesty, it has been rather challenging to sometimes keep up with the material but I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by like-minded individuals who are there for me when I need them. That includes both my friends at the program as well as the coaches.
As far as what we have been taught, I rather like the languages that were chosen because they're simple to understand but complex enough to be able to do what you want with them. Those languages were Ruby and Javascript. We were also taught how to use different frameworks for each. in Ruby, we used Rails. in Javascript, we Used Node.js and React. Overall, I would say that I've really enjoyed the time that I've spent here with everyone.

When it came down to project week for each module, I was always excited but at the same time stressed because I could never come up a an idea that I felt I really wanted to do. Eventually I had help along the way and decided on what to do.

One thing I will tell someone if they're new at deciding on projects with a time-crunch, make sure to scope your project properly. I didn't do this properly in my projects if I'm being honest because I was too hopeful that I could everything within the time (best not to do this haha). It can definitely help to ask others for opinions and maybe someone who's already done previous projects to give you an idea of what's possible and what isn't.

The Importance of Learning Algorithms and Data Structures for Technical Interviews(also a little bonus at the end)

Alfonso Pruneda — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 23:38:15 +0000

Disclaimer: I first want to start this post by saying that anything I mention here is based on my own opinion and from things that I have learned along the way thus far. Since it's based on opinion, I know I can definitely be wrong and I'd be more than happy to have a discussion and learn. So feel free to let me if that's the case! Now that that is out of the way, let's continue.

If you're trying to get into a big company like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. then learning sorting/search algorithms and data structures is very important. If you're trying to get into a startup or very small company, then learning those algorithms/data structures is only slightly important. Let's discuss why that is.

When it comes to big companies, it's become more and more apparent to me that being able to solve problems that are given to you during your technical interview, already knowing these algorithms and data structures is tremendous help to passing your interview and getting the job. Now, I'm also not trying to say that just knowing these things well will be enough to get you a job at those places, because being able to talk through the process of you solving the problem and showing that you're able to deal with difficult situations is just as important. But without knowing these things like what a Stack data structure is or Quick Sort algorithm is for example can really hurt your chances of even getting an in-person interview since they do online screenings where all you do is solve either one or two coding problems within an hour. If you can't do those problems effectively, they won't take you for consideration anymore. (Also a side note to this, make sure you also understand the Big O notation for time complexity and space complexity when solving problems.)

Now let's talk about when it comes to smaller companies. Knowing algorithms and data structures is still fairly important because it will help you become a no-brainer hire, which means there's no doubt of you getting hired. But, the good thing about smaller companies is that they are more willing to hire beginner programmers as long as you can show them that you're willing to learn, which means that you don't have to find the most efficient answer to whatever problem you're solving.

And that's it! I really only wanted to just share my thoughts on the importance of knowing algorithms and data structures in general. If you happen to agree with me and you're in the process of looking for a job, make sure you study up on all of them and do as many problems as possible before your next interview! If you want to discuss further or maybe want to know some resources for problems, let me know and I'd be happy to hold that conversation.

But Wait! I mentioned a little bonus in the title and if you've read this far then you're in luck. I recently found a website that I thought was really cool. levels.fyi is the website and it's used to check salaries for software engineering jobs and their associated levels. This information is awesome to understand when you should negotiate or not negotiate on a salary when given a job offer. All information is inputted by the software engineers directly which means it might not always have the company you got a job offer from.

Creating a simple pick-your-path webpage with Authentication/Authorization

Alfonso Pruneda — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 22:29:30 +0000

Hello and welcome to my second blog post! Today I wanted to talk about a project that I did in one week for the coding bootcamp that I am attending.
To give some background, This project was created using Ruby on Rails with sqlite3 as a database, HTML, and CSS only. The main purpose of this project was to make sure we had an understanding of the MVC structure(models,views,controllers) as well as RESTful conventions. The only thing we weren't allowed to use was javascript since later on it's something that we would be taught.
Alright, on to the fun stuff! So when first deciding what to do for my project after been given the guidelines, I was having difficulties coming up with any good ideas that I thought would work. Luckily, I had a good friend help me go through a process of choosing something that I would like. We first talked about some of the things that I really liked in general. So as an example, two things I picked out were pokemon and horror games. Then, I went into thinking of some examples based off of those topics. To not overload with details, two examples I did for horror games were slender man and resident evil. Knowing those examples, I was able to think about the theme of those games and ended up with a topic for my project. Based off the title, you already have an idea, but I ended up deciding on making a horror-themed webpage where users can go through a story and they have options based on where they are in the story.
After knowing what I wanted to do, I went through the process of creating my models and this is what I ended up with. (I did have to go back eventually and rethink my models to make things simpler and removed the monster and monster joiner models)
Then I created the model associations as well as adding validations, and authorization/authentication using BCrypt.

Then I created the Controllers with authorization/authentication, and sessions as well

After all that, all that was left was to create html.erb file for the views and all the structure of the webpage which I used CSS grid and flexbox.

I will say that after trying to learn CSS, CSS grid, and flexbox for a week, I still have a lot to learn. For me personally, the CSS that I wrote seems very sloppy at best so I'll definitely make it a note to improve on that.
Also, just so I don't overload you with all the code that I wrote, I'll just go ahead and link the github repository for this project if you'd like to look at it even further. I'll also provide a link to the webpage for the project itself which was deployed using Heroku. (It was quite a learning process changing the database from sqlite3 to postgresql since I can't deploy to Heroku using sqlite3, so if you maybe want some more information about that and how I did it, let me know in the comments below!)

And that's it! Unfortunately I know I didn't really explain in detail about some of the processes that I went through, but if that's something that you would appreciate or would like to know more about, let me know and I'll do my best to implement it more, Thank you for your time.
Flatiron Horror -Webpage
Github Repository for Flatiron Horror

First Blog Post!

Alfonso Pruneda — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 07:46:04 +0000

Hello and thank you for reading my post! I'm definitely new to talking about my journey so all of this will have a learning curve for me, but I'm very excited to give it a shot. Since this is my very first post, I wanted to go ahead and give a little info about myself, what I'm currently doing, and what I'm working towards. My name is Alfonso, but I usually go by Fonzie. I grew up in El Paso, TX but now I live in Seattle, WA. I'm 24 years old as of this post and I'm a college drop out. As much as I wanted to finish college and get a degree, it just wasn't for me.

Luckily, after moving to Seattle, I've been fortunate enough to able to start a Bootcamp at Flatiron School for software engineering which I'm currently still attending. I've already met so many amazing people and have learned quite a lot in the last few weeks. Going forward, I will definitely start posting about things that I've learned or in the process of learning, things that are difficult to understand, cool features that intrigued me and basically anything related to programming because someone out there might find the information useful and I like the idea of helping others even if it might only be one person. Also, even though I'm still very much a beginner, don't be afraid to reach out if there's something I talk about that you maybe need help on or maybe you know a much better solution, I would love to learn better practices and things I can improve on. Or, neither of those apply and maybe you just want to connect, that's fine too! I love connecting with people, hearing their stories and making new friends!

Finally to finish things off, I want to talk a little about where I want to be after graduating Bootcamp and possibly where I want to be in a few years. After graduating, I hope to be able to find a job working as either a fullstack, front-end, or back-end web developer. Preferably I would want to do fullstack but I'm really ok with any option. And while I really do like web development, my true goal for the future would be to become a game developer. Hopefully after a few years I will be able to branch off and work as a game developer. I really like the idea of creating an entire game by myself also but I would really only do that on my spare time.
Thank you for reading and if you want to follow my journey, feel free to Follow and I'll try and do the same!