DEV Community: Eddie

# Playing with Python lists

Eddie — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 09:12:09 +0000

For the #100DaysOfCode I make sure to do something everyday. I went back and reread a chapter on lists and tuples. It seemed straightforward enough the first time. I can comprehend it, but I don't grok it. It's the little things.

At the end of the chapter, it said to “create a list of favorite bands”. So here are some bands...

favorite_bands = ["Concrete Blonde", "Slayer", "Yngwie Malmsteen"]

Simple enough. And I was able to pull one band from that list with a simple print(favorite_bands[2]) bit. I ran a .append() method and all was good.

Then I ran into trouble in printing two lists. The operation and didn't do it, only printing the last variable. Through trial and error I got it to work with a comma. But when I checked the type of obscure, it returned a string, not a list.

Just goes to show, I have a lot to learn.

Project in Python

Eddie — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 21:32:48 +0000

I can’t tell you how many videos and books and articles I’ve consumed on Python. At first I was driving myself even crazier because I was also doing the same for Swift code. But I stopped Swift and have been focusing on Python. Unsure if I’m making progress. Not really, no.  I’ll follow along with a video, do the code on my mac or iPad, and all is good. I’ll tweak it here and there and watch what happens. But generally it’s all not sinking in. I tried to take some killer Notion apps, like I see on YouTube. But I cannot access Notion the 8 hours I’m in an office, and the internet is sometimes too slow to access it on my MBP or iPad when I’m out of the Operations Center and its lame computer/network.  Earlier I had Googled for some beginner projects. I liked the one for choose your own adventure. I did a simple choice last week where it asked about pineapple and pizza. This time I started from scratch and started to move down a path.  One thing that is strange to me is that when I put in this:

 

name = input("What is your name?").strip()

print(name, ", before you is an old gate. It appears to be quite old, with vines snarled around the bars so thickly that you cannot see through to the other side.")

 I get a space after the name variable when I have it in a string.   

That little space after my name and before the comma drives me nuts. But I’ll hold off on that detail. For now I’m pressing on. Let’s add some loops. I saw in one video how you can add the .lower() and it will take a YES or Yes and convert it all to a lowercase ‘yes’. Otherwise, I’d have to write some code checking for this in the loop. Neat trick.   

I’ll admit that I goofed when I made this at first. I was testing it with each step of the way, and before I wrote the else at the end, it was an infinite loop and kept printing the last sentence a bazillion times and crashed Safari. HA! I added the else and it fixed it.  I wanted a way to keep track of progress, and right off the top of my head I named it block and gave it a value of 1. I used a simple += 1 with it and figured that I could do some while loops for various values of the block. Because this was a local variable, I had to use the global keyword. Not that I’m smart here, but I didn’t know how else to increment the variable up one as a result of a choice, but also have that variable defined outside of the function. This seems to work just fine.   

What would good look like?

Eddie — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:38:44 +0000

Last night I was tucked away in my mosquito net cover on my small bed in a tent in Somalia, streaming the Apple WWDC 2020 Keynote. I freaking love Apple products. And, I think that I’d love their culture as well. Plus, typing this on my iPad, I just discovered if you type aapple you get this . That’s pretty cool.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve slacked in my coding classes, and instead have been reading widely on politics and race. One book that particularly struck me was Michael Bennett’s Things that make white people uncomfortable. It had a lot of parts within it that gave me pause. I’ve always felt that I was a good person. I’ve done a lot of small acts over the years that I felt a good person ought to do. Still, after reading this, I came away with the question of what else could I do?

In three months

In three months my life will be different. Much different than it’s been in a few years to say the least. Over the next nine months I’ll be undergoing a transition period. I’ll be leaving the military, after 23 years of service, living in a new city, and transitioning to a new job. The low level panic has already taken root. I’ve got the development skills of a sleeping wombat. What job could have get in web dev, with my skill level, to afford me to live?

Fortunately, my credit cards and car are all paid off. Still, I worry. I’m not moving to New York where there are millions of people. I’m moving to Ashland, Oregon. I’m thinking that I’ll likely find a job doing something, anything, and will do web dev on the side. Maybe I can get a part-time gig, allowing me the time to also do web dev.

Thinking of what might be available for work in southern Oregon when I get there is cause for panic. I can make a webpage, sure. I know HTML and I’m good enough with CSS3 to make a webpage for the average person out there. But what about a car dealership that wants reactive images, gallery views, and so on? That’s beyond my level right now. Sheesh, what if going to southern Oregon and trying to break into web development isn’t the mutually beneficial?

But wait, what about doing good.

Sometimes, surfing the interwebs is bad for your self image. The typical “start in front end web dev” lists a dozen skills. I’m still working on number 4, Python, before I even think about moving on to JavaScript. But if I step back away from the title of Front End Developer, and look at what I bring to the table, it’s a lot. I’m pretty good with a lot of things, and can run a good ship. I encourage growth, mentor people, and try to push decision making down lower and also decentralized. I look for talented people and then get out of their way and let them do their thing. Pretty much the opposite of the military and it’s top-down methodology, lines of effort, synergizing, and battle rhythms.

I read articles by Doist and I love the culture, the trust, the richness of their social dynamics. Are there other groups out there like this? Are there groups out there that are this open, mutually supportive, creative, agile, and yet have a profess desire to make a positive change in the world? I hope to find one. An organization that practiced excellent productivity, communications, systems, allowing people to create, that also had a good cause, a purpose, a means of helping others, I’d pour my heart and soul into it. I’ve found that even organizations with professed good causes, are themselves mired in crushing bureaucracy and limiting systems. In these systems, one can work very hard and accomplish very little.

It is my hope to find something, some group, organization, cause, that I can believe in.

New Guy Here

Eddie — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:27:16 +0000

A loud BOOM just sounded over the barriers. It’s the third one in five minutes. Just another day here in Somalia.

I’m currently on a military deployment with the Oregon Army National Guard. I’ve been here for months and will be home soon. Ish. Depends.

A long, long time ago... in a place far, far away... I was a Marine. After four trips around the world, I’d discovered that I wanted to know more. I sought out psychology in college when I got out. But I’m also one that follows a calling, or a love interest, and four states later, I was in Oregon. After a decade of college, including a trip to Iraq with the National Guard, I completed a bachelors of science double major in psychology and philosophy. For over a decade I’ve done Weekly group work with veterans struggling after deployment but who found themselves n trouble for domestic violence. I’ve given over three hundred presentations to police departments around the state about crisis intervention techniques with veterans with combat stress related injuries. And I’ve coordinated programs for the State on resilience and mental health for soldiers. I love my veterans and will easily drive eight hours on my own dime to give training to a group, and then drive back. A Mustang and a lot of podcasts, and I can drive for days.

People ask me if I’m going to become a therapist, or go into research. No. To do therapy is draining for me. I’m an introvert and “plugging in“ exhausts me. And for research, I’m not sure I have the chops for it mathematically. Also, I’ve seen the immense amount of work that goes into trying to secure funding. Research departments spend 80% competing for grants, 10% making the work fit the scope of the awarded grant, and 10% research.

Amidst all of this is the question, what do you do for fun? Well, I hike. That and play Magic The Gathering, and run, and guitar, and World of Warcraft (Night Elf Hunter!). But every Apple Keynote, I’m sitting on my couch, Apple TV on, an iPad, MBP, iPhone, all going, as I watch the keynote and ooh and ahh. I try to get the betas as soon as I can. I listen to productivity podcasts, read books, and have put out many videos of my own on YouTube (apologies for the cursing, have to connect with veterans in their language). I’m not a guru, but I’m always looking for how to make things better. Ten minutes ago, I gave a SSG that works for me a class on kInbox Zero’.

When I started college in, ‘ahem’, 1995, I taught myself HTML and started making webpages. I even gave free classes to other students as well. I like to teach and share. Over the years I’ve been the volunteer webmaster for many groups, from college groups (Psi Chi), to political groups (Lane County Green Party), and others. I never took any classes, always thinking that I was on a track in psychology to do, um, something. You see, a common question I’m psychology a person should ask is if they want to go research or clinical route. I didn’t have an answer. I see now that it isn’t because I loved both, but because I didn’t love both.

Looking back, after a long day in class, I’d often be found in the computer lab, working on a webpage HTML in NotePad. There was no flexbox or grid. It was tables and invisible images to get things to align. But I’d make sites for fun, including a multi-page fan site to Tomb Raider 1 video game. I was in the crowdfunding of the recent recording of that soundtrack by the London Philharmonic. I’ve got an autographed sheet of music framed on my wall, next to the Tardis Van Gogh.

If I had it all to do over again, instead of Psychology, I’d study Computer Science. Instead, I’m a latecomer to the field and am playing catch-up. I’ve paid for two online classes, one a Front End Web Dev class with SkillCrush, the other Real Python.

I’m trying to learn how to use Notion to take better notes o that I retain I formation better. For a webpage project, I’ve scrapped the CSS code three times and worked from scratch. I’m a believer in fundamentals, and getting three items to align alongside each other within a div has been the a dose of humility.

After learning the next skills in the course, GIT and JavaScript, I plan to jump into Swift. I’ve got some ideas for a couple apps. There’s an itch that needs scratching. Also, knowing what I know about psychology, I think I could make a difference with one of them.

I’m movie to southern Oregon, Ashland to be precise, where I hope to walk to the coffee shops and Shakespeare. It isn’t well known for tech, so I hope to find remote work. I’ve worked remotely for years, running programs for an entire state. Much of which can be done via my iPhone 11 from the dog park. People don’t think it’s possible, but out of seven states, my state performed well enough for me to receive a bonus.

I hope to be involved with design and creation. During a Positive Psychology class we were all instructed to write out our six word biographies. Exactly six words. These words are to express who we are. It took me a couple of days, but mine, after Iraq, was “I’m an arrow without a target”.

Now, it is “I am a priest of beauty”.