DEV Community: itrytocodethings

Week 9

itrytocodethings — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 19:37:48 +0000

Time for another post!

At this week’s huddle, we talked about job titles & associated responsibilities. You’ve been a software engineer for a few weeks now. How do your day-to-day responsibilities differ from what you expected? Have you been surprised by the breakdown of work each week?

My time spent at my host company so far has been pretty busy. For the last few weeks we've been learning the tech we will use on our project, as well as the project structure. This is the first time I've worked with a large codebase or have even seen one! Honestly, it is sort of overwhelming at times. However, at this point my host company just wants me to get familiar with the tech/existing code base before we start contributing and I couldn't be more happy with that 🤣. At times, I still feel like I don't know 'enough'. I guess that is the infamous IMPOSTER SYNDROME.

So far, just a lot of learning and I LOVE that. That's why I'm here. 😊

One thing that's pretty surprising to me is the amount of discussion/meetings that happen within a team. Prior to the Develop Carolina apprenticeship and being placed with my host company, I had no point of reference. I always thought developers were just slinging out code all day. Just the process of 'how to work' is amazing to me. My employer host also provided two full days of 'intro to agile' training that was extremely helpful to understand terms/concepts I've overheard in standups and why we work the way we do.

I feel like I say this in most of my post but just learning as much as I can and enjoying every minute!!

Progress! - Week 8 Develop Carolina

itrytocodethings — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 18:35:06 +0000

Last week we had to demo progress on our umbrella projects in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship. The few workshops previously were geared towards scaffolding a project and how to pick tech stacks for your project. This demo was just the 'hello world' version of our project just to demo the tech stack working on a base level.

Shaun and I decided to go with the ReactJS for the frontend, Node/Express for our backend/api and MongoDB for our database. We felt this was a smart move due to the fact most of our experience has been with Javascript so keeping the language across the stack was a no brainer. Considering we still have to learn the tech used on our teams at our host companies, didn't want to have any information overload 😄. However, we did decide to go with mongodb because we both wanted to learn about NoSQL databases.

So MERN is pretty much our 'foundation' stack. There are a few other technologies we decided that will play a critical role in our app. One of those is Socket.IO. Our app requires real time communication and thats what socket.io provides,it'ss a library that enables real time communication between clients in the browser and the server. Again, this is a pretty new tool for us and we both have to dive in and research this. I feel like this will probably be the most challenging aspect of the project because the whole app is based around this 'real time' communication and we are both really new to this. Although I feel this is challenging, I am super excited about learning about real time communication and more importantly the socket.io library.

So far, I'm happy with the progress that my partner Shaun and I have made so far in our project. We still have a lot to learn and more progress to make but i'm excited to start writing features for our project!

Milestones

itrytocodethings — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:46:00 +0000

This week we presented the 'Hello World' version of our projects in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship. This was mainly to demonstrate we have our chosen tech stack assembled and at a base level, working. This is a great time to reflect on my coding journey so far. It still feels so unreal.

Generally, I've always loved tech but didn't know what path I wanted to take. Then I found programming. I was spending my free time learning after work and even weekends. That's when I realized this is what I genuinely ENJOY and decided that I would pursue this as a career.

Thinking back, my actual first experience with code was playing around with mod scripts for games I played when I was younger. Of course I wasn't really writing things from scratch then, just editing values and seeing what happens. Even that was mesmerizing to me. I changed something and something happened! Many times that 'something happened' was 'its crashing' but at that time, still really cool 😆.

Its just wild to think back to times like that. I genuinely didn't think it was something I could do for a career, I didn't feel 'smart' enough and didn't really dedicate myself to it. As of today I completed a full stack development boot camp, was accepted and currently participating in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship which has given me the opportunity to continue learning and gain real world experience with an internship at a leading tech company. Again, I could have never imagined I would be in the position I am today. As I mentioned in my intro, it still feels so unreal. I am so excited for the next few months continuing to learn and build new things with Develop Carolina and in my host company.

Do you have the time..

itrytocodethings — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 12:21:45 +0000

Time is such a weird thing. At this point, I'm a little over a month into my apprenticeship with Develop Carolina. WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE??

So far I've been pretty busy. Mondays & Fridays with the Develop Carolina apprenticeship and Tuesday-Thursday with my paired host company. During my host company time I'm learning some project specific technologies as well as participate in daily standups and other team meetings. Right now my time is spent just getting up to speed with what I will need to know as I get onboarded to the project.

My time with Develop Carolina still consists of workshops as well as planning my umbrella project. Right now were in the process of scaffolding our umbrella projects and my partner and I have picked our tech stack and look forward to getting our required technologies together and being development!

Overall, I feel pretty busy. So far, it is a lot of context switching between what we are learning in the workshops vs host company materials. However, I don't think this is a bad thing! From what I've experienced at my host company, context switching happens frequently in software development. So that itself is a learning opportunity! With my current experience some material at my host company can feel overwhelming and difficult to understand but I have reached out when I had questions so far and I'm using the time I have to learn as much as I can.

In this together.

itrytocodethings — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 21:14:45 +0000

This weeks blog prompt is collaboration. Prior to my time in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship I really had no idea how important teamwork and collaboration is in software development. Getting a glimpse of how actual software and actual teams go from idea to product was absolutely mind blowing and it involves 100% collaboration from several teams.

From my perspective, I think the key to successful collaboration is having a safe open environment. Everyone should feel comfortable sharing their ideas and thoughts. This leads to trust and you can't have collaboration without trust. That's how I plan to approach working with my partner Shaun 🤜🤛 (virtual fist bump Shaun) on our Umbrella Project. Up until this point through the ideation and planning steps I developed this idea solo. That only provided me with only one perspective and a single set of ideas. Having someone to collaborate with provides new perspectives and of course double the ideas! I think communication and further getting to know one another will be the key to a successful umbrella project. Learning each others strengths and weaknesses and utilizing that will allow us to be more productive and successful. I think this really applies to the project as well as in our host company teams.

I'm not a writer and sometimes I find it hard to put thoughts into words! So I hope this makes sense. 😆

Craftsmanship

itrytocodethings — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 12:23:51 +0000

Modern craftsmanship principles apply to most, if not all trades. While it’s common to think back in history and pick trades such as blacksmithing or even pottery when discussing craftsman and craftsmanship, today, craftsmanship principles can apply to all fields.

I’m at the beginning of my journey in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship program and one of the first things introduced is how to approach the program and learn. That involved learning about the history of craftsmanship and what that means. Craftsmanship is more of a mindset and how you approach your trade or career. In an article regarding shokunin, I read that the finished product is affected by the environment produced. These artisans spend a lifetime learning their environment and materials to create products and are true masters of their craft.

This itself can apply to several trades such as nursing, service industry positions, and in my case, software engineering. In order to master your craft, you must pour yourself into your craft. Fully immerse yourself and love what you do every day. To get better you have to DO. One of the common themes I saw while researching craftsmanship was repetition. By continuous practice and DOING you will see improvements. Another resource during this learning module was watching the film Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Jiro is what most consider a master of his craft. Something straightforward that I thought was rather powerful was Jiro saying something like “All I want to do is make the best sushi, and it gets better each time.” Jiro’s son also says some are born with natural skills and gifts but if you work hard you’ll get good over time.” Again, a very common theme is investing your time and dedication to the craft.

To summarize, a craftsman is anyone who takes pride in what they do, loves what they do, has self discipline, and truly invests in their field. Craftsmanship doesn’t apply to any particular craft or trade its how you approach the craft or trade.

Hello World. 👋

itrytocodethings — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 17:25:31 +0000

The best way to describe my first day/week in the Develop Carolina apprenticeship would be the GIF above 😂

I’m super grateful and excited for having the opportunity to be a part of this program. It was really nice meeting and speaking to some of my fellow cohort mates and realizing we actually shared feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and uncertainty. So I wasn't alone!

So a little about me...

I love technology. A very simple statement, I know. When I was younger, video games were the initial ✨spark✨. It started with console gaming, then evolved into PC gaming. My first PC game was Halo Combat Evolved. Funny enough, I didn't even have a 'gaming' PC. I had a really generic home HP family computer that I played it on. I really wish I could remember the performance, but I can imagine I was getting probably 12 fps.

When was working as a teenager, I finally had my own funds. I can build a PC! So that happened and really accelerated my passion. Started learning Linux so I could rent a VPS and run my own game servers without having to 'rent' individual overpriced 'slot' based game servers. From then on, this tech stuff has been in motion.

What about development?

Initially, I didn't pursue Software Development. I enrolled in an IT program and got my B.S. Information Technology. During that program, I had some intro to programming classes and thought it was really cool. Thinking now, it was pretty basic, but I really enjoyed it. At the time, I thought that to get into development, I would have had to go the computer science route and be this genius mathematician. A lot of misconceptions on my end. After completing my degree, I never moved into a technical role. Still wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the rest of my life 😅.

And so our story begins... shoutout to any Fable fans

I started to research and realized that I could make a career in software development and remember how much I enjoyed my introduction to programming. For a few months, I went the self-learning route and I was having a blast. Spending time after work and even weekends dedicated to learning. That was REALLY the point when I discovered I found what I LOVE doing. After building some confidence I decided I would enroll in a Bootcamp to get a deeper dive (primarily web development) into current technologies used in the industry. I completed that in April 2022 and found Develop Carolina!

Since then, I've had such an amazing experience! I'm just so excited to be on this journey to see how we will all grow over the next six months.