DEV Community: Zachary Niehoff

What I've Been Working On: Flask, REST APIs, Testing, and Projects.

Zachary Niehoff — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 04:22:47 +0000

What I've Been Up To

I have been trying to grow and solidify my knowledge by watching videos/completing tutorials and then making my own projects using the knowledge I gained as practice. I have a list of skills I want to learn so I started working with a few of them simultaneously.

I watched a video on LinkedIn Learning about creating a college course website using Flask, REST APIs, and MongoDB. I started coding along with the instructor but soon realized that I already knew or understood the concepts he was teaching.

After all the work I've put into my portfolio website I have become quite accustomed with Django's syntax and how it works. When it came to learning Flask it was a breeze. I was able to translate the concepts I'd learned with Django and create a working app way quicker than before.

My Project

I finally found an interesting small project to work on. I am creating a Python/Flask web application that makes small, unimportant decisions for you. Like where to eat tonight? or What movie should I watch? It isn't anything even remotely revolutionary but it's getting me valuable experience in Flask, Python, and using APIs.

First Steps

It started off being an app to choose where to eat, but I decided I wanted more depth. Right now, I only have the restaurant chooser app completed. I plan to implement more soon.

APIs Used

Creating this app I got a lot of experience using Google APIs. Mainly geocoding, places, and Google map embed. I also learned that some companies charge to use APIs and that is why I am not hosting my web app.

HTML and CSS

I love the concept of having templates being extended to generate pages. It makes setting up new HTML pages for your project fast and simple. This time around I decided not to go with Bootstrap and try my hand at CSS myself. I don't think it went badly I just don't know how to make my website's pretty yet.

Virtual Environments

One thing the video did teach me was how to setup and use a virtual environment in Visual Code. I had never used a virtual environment before despite having heard quite a bit about them. It was surprisingly easy and non-painful. I can't believe I was using the command prompt so much before.

Unit Testing

Another concept I've been wanting to get into. It wasn't covered in the video and my current project isn't a great one to implement tests into. I currently have one test in my app and it is to make sure the restaurant chooser class functions properly. I can't make the test 100% accurate because the API sometimes returns Subway and other silly things when you are searching for pizza.

Thanks for reading.

I have been working hard on learning and building up to a career in Software Development. This is my third project I feel will be worthy of showcasing and I'll hopefully have more to show off before the year is over. Also, in about a month I'll have my Associates Degree in Software Development and officially be halfway done with school! Maybe then I can finally get an Internship.

The project can be found here if you are interested in viewing it.

My Experience Creating a Portfolio Website

Zachary Niehoff — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 04:06:39 +0000

Welcome

I finally got a rough version of my portfolio up and running. It wasn't easy but it was a very rewarding experience. I started with a tutorial I came across on LinkedIn Learning.

Setting the Foundation

The tutorial shows you how to turn a premade bootstrap page into a simple portfolio showcase. I think it was a great starting point. I do not excel at CSS so bootstrap helped immensely in getting things into place. I really like Django's integration with the HTML. Being able to use variables and create loops right in the HTML is a really handy tool.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is probably my new favorite tool. CSS is a handy skill to have, but I don't enjoy it and definitely don't want to make a career out of doing it. I much prefer working back-end and this lets me develop a useable decent front-end in no time.

Django

Running a "for loop" right in the html to create job cards and populating the information dynamically depending on the number of jobs in the database was very satisfying. I also liked how I could create a base page with most of the layout and have each unique page be an extension of it.

Heroku

This was the most challenging part. I can't remember why I ultimately went with Heroku but I had no experience using any web hosts yet. It was a pleasant experience though. The documentation was good and I got some command line experience with git.

The Hard Parts

Setting an environment variable took me quite awhile, since you can't host the secret key or your database login details. I was looking for answers without specifying I was using Heroku to host it. Once I found out about Heroku's config variables and "os.environ" everything started working.

The next hurdle was learning how to use an API(Dev.To's API) for the first time. I'm still not sure I did it 100% correctly but it works and displays some blog info. I'm kind of proud of the way I went about it. What I did was take the response from an API, convert it to json(), create a dictionary with all of the values, then nest that dictionary and return it with the render function. It was the only way I knew to get Django to let me separate the data and display each item individually.

The last hurdle was my own inexperience. I thought I was having more problems with the secret key/config variables and spent hours trying to fix it. It turns out when I was trying to "python manage.py runserver" in the cmd prompt I forgot that I needed to put "heroku run python manage.py runserver". I was attempting to run it from my own PC instead of heroku!

Still To Do

I need to make it look nice. I think it looks okay and I don't think I need to do anything major, but if anyone has any suggests I'm all ears!

I also need to figure out how to get my database images to show up. I got it to work one in an earlier version of the website but now they don't show up. I have static placeholder images and images imported from the blog, but I can't add a picture to the database and view it. I read that I might need to pay for a CDN but I feel like there has to be a way around it for just a few small images.

I still need to get the root domain to work, currently it only works if you type "www". I also need to look into getting a SSL certificate.

Thanks for Reading!

Anyways, it's something I created and I'm proud of doing it without using a website builder. It's up and running here

Edit: SSL certificate is up and running and I setup a redirect so my root domain works.

So much to learn, so little time.

Zachary Niehoff — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 05:55:21 +0000

I had my first take home assessment today. I was told I’d be using JavaScript which was fine with me. They said they needed to know if I could use JavaScript so I could make apps with JourneyApps.

Well, JavaScript was the least of my problems. I had to design an app using JourneyApps to manage a warehouse. It needed to have a database with 60 products, UI and functionality for customers to query and create orders, and UI/ functionality for order pickers to receive the order. I had to implement inventory management (orders had to be at least 5 items and inventory had to be tracked) and create optimal paths for pickers based on what items were in their order.

At first I was intimidated, and then I became determined. Then after getting frustrated and working with it for 8 hours I gave up.

I’m really glad I attempted it though because I learned a lot. I learned more of what is expected of entry level developers. I was definitely not prepared to design and implement a functional app in an evening using an obscure platform as a budding coder.

I’m going to take the concept and implement it in either Python/Django or break down and learn a JavaScript stack and add it to my portfolio. Gotta get my portfolio website fully functional first, though.

My Journey

Zachary Niehoff — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 17:51:07 +0000

This is my first post detailing my journey to a career in Software Development!

My most proficient language by far is Python. I love doing everything in Python. I don't know if I am interested in a data science career but I would like to do more with it. I learned the Django framework to expand on my Python knowledge.

I hold two technical certificates in website development and I am able to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I am currently taking a class on Javascript to expand my knowledge and am considering learning either MERN or MEAN stacks.

When I start my junior year at Western Governor's University I will be learning C# and .Net development. I've already taken a class on C#/Visual Basic so I'm somewhat aware of the basics.

I will try to do frequent updates as I learn new things. I'm currently working on my portfolio website using HTML/CSS/Boostrap/Javascript/Python/Django/PostgreSQL and I'm really happy with how it's turning out.