Military to Software Engineer Journey Day 1

msimon96 — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 03:48:00 +0000

Must read for beginners:

“Coffee Break Python” by Christian Mayer

This is honestly some decent reading material for learning Python that I would HIGHLY suggest. It focuses on active learning rather than passive. The fundamental objectives it has to absorb the material is quite interesting. The objectives are:

1. Overcome the Knowledge Gap
2. Embrace the Eureka Moment
3. Divide and Conquer
4. Improve From Immediate Feedback
5. Measure Your Skills
6. Individualized Learning
7. Small is Beautiful
8. Active Beats Passive Learning
9. MakeSourceCodeaFirst-classCitizen
10. What You See is All There is

After reading roughly 50 - 60 pages that explained the fundamentals, the real learning began. Basically utilizing the ELO score in chess as a measurement tool in measuring your skills/development while working through simple then complex puzzles.

The first puzzle was “Hello World” figuring out the output:

print(“hello world”)

This took microseconds to figure out. The next was “variables and float division”.

 x = 55 / 11 
 print(x)

and understanding that when division is utilized you get an “xxxxx” output.

After that, it was “Basic Arithmetic Operations”. It brought me back to basic math “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”

x = 50 * 2 + (60 - 20) / 4
print(x)

The next puzzle for the day was “Comments and Strings”. This one I couldn’t figure out until I was actually writing it out in the terminal itself:

# This is a comment
answer = 42  # the answer
# Now back to the puzzle
text = "# Is this a comment?"
print(text)

Lastly, the final puzzle for the day was “Index and Concatenate Strings” before I called it a quits. I figured it out in an odd way compared to how it should’ve been solved. Then I thought to myself there’s always more than one way to get the answer.

x = ‘silent’
Print (x[2] + x[1] + x[0] + x[5] + [4])

As I don’t want to provide the answer to the puzzles, seems like a fun task for anyone to try. Total there’s 50 puzzles altogether. Give it a shot and tell me what you think.

Military to Software Engineer Journey Day 0

msimon96 — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 01:14:04 +0000

When it comes the time to transition most military is late to develop a plan. Heck, this even applies to a regular person in society. As for myself, I've had a plan from the very beginning. 8 years ago I decided when it came time I would learn every facet of Information Technology. Learning everything from the foundation up. I've learned systems, networks, information security, and cybersecurity as a whole. Now my new journey begins with learning to code. Mind you I do know some coding dealing with understanding cyber analytics but here I plan to exceed my boundaries and dive deep into coding.

I came across the 100 Days of Code simply through research and attending a coding Bootcamp but never felt that I was learning. So I decided to take this journey myself and teach myself. To start I will be working my way through several coding languages like python, C#, and Java. Every day I will be tracking my journey and recording what I learned what I felt was difficult and what was easy. If there's another way to make coding more understandable I will leave my thoughts because most of us learn in different styles. The end of my journey and the beginning of a new journey will be when I secure a role as a software engineer for a major firm. Sounds optimistic but I always say "the only thing stopping you...is you. Follow me on my journey and join the fun.

DEV Community: msimon96

Military to Software Engineer Journey Day 1

Military to Software Engineer Journey Day 0