DEV Community: Kayley

What do you do when you're stuck?

Kayley — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 15:40:42 +0000

Right now, I'm sitting at my desk staring at an error - it doesn't make sense whats going on or why this error occurred. If you're working with a language that has a huge cormmunitity, it's likely that you can just google what problem you've come across. For me that's not really the case, I work with ColdFusion. Of course, after a while - if I can't solve the error I will reach out to my coworkers for help, but I'm trying to do that as a last resort now.

Out of habit, I reach for my phone. Check twitter, facebook, instagram.. or even writing this post. Most of the time I don't really realize I'm doing it. I was talking to a colleague recently who mentioned that I spend a lot of time on phone, and I was pretty surprised. Out of this discussion, I became more aware that grabbing for my phone is something I do what I get stuck or even uncomfortable with a ticket. I use it for a distraction or outlet even to get my mind off what I'm struggling with.

Since becoming aware of my constant phone use I've made an effort to keep my phone in my bag. But now I still need an outlet to let that feeling of being stuck pass.

What is the right approach for issues like this? Obviously we all get stuck, from junior to senior dev - we won't automagically know the answers or always how to source them. So, how do you handle these types of situations?

Nevertheless, Kayley Coded

Kayley — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 19:07:48 +0000

My start 👩‍💻

I think like a lot of people my age, the first time I ever did any sort of coding, unbeknownst to me, was through Neopets. Being able to play around on my Neopet shout out Strawberry_Ted Petpage with HTML and CSS was crazy to me. By changing background colours & fooling around with fonts, my mind was blown away from what I could do. However, I really had no idea what this magic was or that it was something I could even pursue as a career.

Taking into consideration that when I was playing Neopets, I was only 13 years old, but as I got older, and continued into high school, I would alter stock Tumblr themes just a little to suit my personality. No one ever said "Hey Kayley, you love computers and the internet - why don't you see if that's something you can pursue as a career?"

I ended up going to post-secondary for sports management with the hopes of becoming an agent. When that didn't go the way I envisioned, I landed in the world of retail. For 10 years I worked at various places, and they were all the same regardless of the industry and I was miserable throughout.

In 2014 I finally decided to pursue web development. I was excited, but it didn't occur to me that because I was a girl, I would have guys in my class constantly arguing with me anytime I gave a suggestion or solution. I also wasn't the only girl in my program, but I feel I was the most outspoken. I didn't care. I pushed myself to prove these guys wrong.

When I walked across the stage 3 years later, accepting my honours diploma, I knew I made the right decision. I knew that I was on the right path where I would finally be in a career that I could be happy. Despite setbacks and doubters, I knew that I would make it.

Making a hard decision 🤔

My JavaScript teacher was a genius. He wasn't a good teacher so I struggled immensely learning JS, and still do! After graduation, I ended up landing a few internships doing Wordpress sites using frameworks and custom CSS. I didn't really have a chance through the internships to work on improving my skill with JS, sadly. After a contract job writing HTML and CSS, I knew that I still wanted to be in the industry but I needed to do something about my lack of JS. So in April 2019 I started at Lighthouse Labs 10 (now 12) week immersive Bootcamp. That was the best decision I made while pursing this career. I knew that I wanted to be in this industry and I was going to do whatever I needed to ensure that I succeeded.

That AHA! moment 💡

While I was in school in Barrie (for web development), I started to mentor at Girls Learning Code (now Canada Learning Code), an initiative that introduces young girls aged 9-12 to programming via HTML and CSS. As you can imagine this was extremely important to me. I wanted to be an advocate for those girls, because I didn't have one. I didn't want any of them to turn around at 28 and say "why didn't I go down that path". After various one-day programs, we had a week-long summer camp and that was the most impactful week of my career as a developer. Seeing these girls so passionate, watching the wheels turn and just having the opportunity to help facilitate a safe environment where they could grow, fail and learn, was everything. This was when I knew how important it was to be a female in the tech industry.

Community 🦄

I want to be an advocate for female devs. I want to shout from the rooftops and make everyone know how amazing female developers are. I want to encourage my own hiring managers to ensure they're hiring women. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go. Female devs STILL get gross messages in their DMs, female devs will give an idea that's completely ignored only to have a male colleague give the same idea and be praised. On top of that, women of colour are not nearly getting close to the same opportunities as white women.

We need to work together to overcome this. We need to lift each other up and ensure that we are seen. Together, we can accomplish so much. We can make 2020 a year that we rise up and support each and everyone of us. Together.

In the beginning

Kayley — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 03:08:30 +0000

Since this is my first post, I should say hi! I'm Kayley, I'm a junior developer out of Ontario, Canada. I have about three years in the industry (99% writing HTML and CSS), with a degree from Georgian College's Interactive Web Design and Development program. I also attended Lighthouse Labs Web Development Bootcamp this past April. If you'd like to know more about me and or my journey, feel free to reach out on twitter - It also doesn’t have to be about anything in particular, I love making new friends!

February marks my fifth month at my new job as a junior developer. When I took this job there were a lot of promises of the code base moving from ColdFusion to React. While that's still a possibility down the road, it currently doesn’t look promising. This was a decision that was made about 3 months into my start, and even though I hadn’t had a chance to work on that project, I was excited to get the chance to work with a modern language in a production setting. So when we were told the project was being put on hold indefinitely I was (still am) pretty bummed.

Firstly, let me say that I love this job. It's a small team and everyone is amazing. It's collaborative, and supportive. Most of the more senior devs seem to really want to see me grow and that’s a pretty good environment to walk into every day.

For better or worse, our stack is 98% ColdFusion (which I will refer to as CF from now on) and I need to learn and understand all its intricacies. Right now, five months into this job, I feel like I'm not where I should be.

There are times where I’m getting help from a more senior dev, and they ask me a simple programming question and I just freeze, my mind goes blank and it’s like I can’t even remember my own name. Throw that anxiety into a language and code base that I’m still learning, and impostor syndrome is so prevalent, that I end up being my own worst enemy

If you're not familiar with CF here is the Adobe definition of the language.

ColdFusion is an application server. ColdFusion is also a web programming language that allows a web application to communicate with various back end systems. Using ColdFusion, you can create dynamic web pages that offer user input, database lookups, time of day, or any other criteria you require. ColdFusion pages consist of standard HTML, together with its proprietary ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML).

I tweeted about my struggles with CF, and ultimately I know that as a junior developer I still have a ton to learn about programming in general. I want to try and document my journey as I navigate through a CF code base, learning, growing and even failing along the way.

I want to be better, and I wish I knew the definition of this - right now it’s just so broad, I can’t define that goal as much as I’d like to. And maybe that’s something I’m able to accomplish through writing these blog posts. I want to help other people who may be in a similar situation as me understand that they are not alone and maybe even take inspiration from my journey and blogging adventure. At the very least, I hope that you’re able to see my progress as I come into my own as a developer, because I don't think anyone really cares about CF anymore (sorry if you do). I'm excited to take this step forward and hope that it plays an instrumental part in my growth as a developer.