DEV Community: Scott Wears

HOW DID YOU EXPECT ME TO REACT :)

Scott Wears — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 18:35:29 +0000

## FRONT END AAAHHHH
we made it to front end, Not going to lie and it might be easy to tell but I much prefer front end, it just make so much more sense to me, I also love using CSS to apply design to a web page.

about the week

first thing we learned about in front end was the DOM, although I have previously learned about and worked with the DOM for fun it was nice to get a refresher as always.

We learned how to interact with the DOM, how to get elements from it and how to add elements to it. we then moved onto Form Validation, I really enjoyed theses sessions because I feel like up till now I haven't really shown the tutors on the bootcamp how much I already know, I feel like I was able to interact with the lectures a lot more than usual which was awesome.

Onto React

Wednesday onward we shifted gears to learn react, this is something I always knew wad the next step to learn in my front end journey, up until now it has seemed like this enormous thing that was difficult to learn, nice to know I was partly wrong, it IS an enormous thing in terms of functionality, but the tutors have so far broken the concepts down into easy to follow sections, and as always they make sure everyone in the lecture is on the same page before introducing a new part to us.

all this is amazing and I'm still really having a blast learning but I do want to bring up something negative this time.

Kata's

Last week we had CSS Kata's which were incredibly fun, However. Over the past few few weeks I've been increasingly concerned about my own ability to complete Kata's, a lot of the times I find myself spending a lot of the morning Kata time Researching the problem more than doing them.

I know there is nothing wrong with learning about the theories they cover but I really worry that its going to have an affect on me when it comes to interviews, I feel like no matter how much of the more practice code I can write, I'm going to fail massively in any of the more theoretical style tech tests I might encounter, I would love to hear if anyone else struggles with them and for anyone unsure what a kata is think Code wars and leetcode.

Scott

The End of the backend

Scott Wears — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 16:07:18 +0000

We're finished backend

So its been 2 weeks again since I last posted, but I though I would wait and round up backend in one post,

Its been an interesting couple of weeks consolidating and putting our new knowledge into practice, I'm happy to say that a lot of it has sunk in.

Over the past few weeks we have finished off the knowledge we needed to cover us for last week, during last week my fellow peers have worked on a portfolio project. we have worked on either a backend news API with article and comments or a games API.

I got all excited when I heard games API but it turns out it was board games so I chose the news API.

We started from the beginning NorthCoders had given us a repo with some of the more boiler plate style code in to get us going but essentially that was just enough to get us going.

testing testing 1... 2... 3...

as with everything in we have done at NorthCoders we started with testing, Its been really interesting over the past few week for me to go from hating/not really using testing to using it to drive my development, we've been using testing to build it relatively small functions but I can easily see how the basis we have now in testing could help us in the future to build larger function and projects.

they planted the seed

the repo we were given contained a whole bunch of seed data for our project, it was our task to use this data and turn it into a working and functional API, I think I might have went a little far with my data, I wrote a function to make sure all of the data was presented to the Database in a way I wanted, I also then spent time writing tests the best I could to test this data and make sure it came back in the format I intended, I then tested the data from the database to make sure that was returned Properly.

our ROUTE to salvation

the next thing we needed to do was build up a whole bunch of endpoints using the REST ideology we had to build ourselves some GET, POST, PATCH and DELETE endpoints to be able to manipulate the data we send and receive from the database.

HerokWHO?

the whole idea of building this project was so that we have something after we have finished the bootcamp, something that employers can look at and play with, some code that they can read and understand, to help us do this we made use of Heroku the online app hosting site. while I've used Heroku once before to host something, this time in true NorthCoders fashion we used the command line to do 90% of the work. Its nice that it has the website but there's something awesome about using the command line to do things.

Up Next

I've really enjoyed my time on backend but I'm excited to move onto front end, looking at the calendar where going to be working with the REACT framework which I haven worked with yet, Taking a sneak peak ahead though it looks like we might be revisiting our projects at the end of front end to round it out and give it more functionality using react.

Kind of like this...

Back end, Express and an introduction from the careers team.

Scott Wears — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 16:32:53 +0000

Another late entry to this series, originally I had planned to write these on a Sunday evening, but its not my fault this time promise.

last week on boot camp introduced the core concepts of back end, Express and PostgreSQL, this is now reflected in the Kata's we do every morning and the lectures we have during the day.

Back end although incredibly challenging is also incredibly interesting. I've always had a fascination on how things work under the hood and the topic of back end fits that.

The basic's

the first thing we learned how to do was to take our knowledge of node http and use that to host a very basic web server, then use Asynchronous code to read information files (replicating a database).


const http = require('http');
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.statusCode = 200;
  res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
  res.end('Hello World');
});

server.listen(3000, '127.0.0.1', () => {
  console.log(`Server running at http://127.0.0.1:3000/`);
});
});

after that we moves onto express which is becoming our module of choice when it comes to hosting our web applications.

const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const port = 3000

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello World!')
})

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Example app listening at http://localhost:${port}`)
})

I don't think based on the basic setup there's much difference in the lines of code but express makes life a little easier for us so far.

PostgreSQL

last week we also learned SQL using PostgreSQL, I really enjoyed learning SQL, I think the syntax is incredible easy to understand I think its a really nice way to get information back from a database. I think one of my favourite things with SQL is how the syntax looks like its just a GIANT sentence, I don't think it needs to shout all the time though

'SELECT * FROM sky WHERE syntax = awesome ORDER BY something ASC'

the Careers Team

Last week a new channel appeared for us on slack and with it the introduction to the careers team, it was amazing introduction on how the careers guidance works for the bootcamp and I'm excited to find out and write about more in the future.

A HUGE thank you

I need to say a huge thank you to all the tutors this week, Its been a difficult week, first my daughter caught COVID from somewhere so I needed to help care for her and in doing so I also caught COVID, the beginning of last week was horrible, I was really ill couldn't concentrate on much, the tutors were nothing but awesome, telling me that it was okay if I rested and understanding that my work wasn't possibly as progressed or on par with normal. although I managed to power through the week I appreciate the tutors reaching out to check on me and make sure I was okay to work.

I'm still recovering from COVID but I'm refusing to give up, the boot camp has been so amazing so far, its also such an amazing opportunity and a chance to progress as a developer I don't want to miss out..

It all Asynced in I promise

Scott Wears — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 20:09:40 +0000

Last Week Boot Camp at NorthCoders was all about Asynchronous Code, We learned how to use the node API to do things while we did other things.

Such a good week

I really enjoyed the last week at boot camp it was incredibly interesting. I Loved the sprint's from Last week as well, especially NC Leaks, the premise of the sprint was to connect to an API (HTTP Requests) that was set up to retrieve the secret this secret had the rest of the instructions for the rest of the sprint, I really enjoyed this style of sprint where the information wasn't directly given to us and we had to work through the sprint to find the information.

Pair Programming

Also this past week I've really been starting to love pair programming a lot more especially being remote, its really good to have someone to work with and talk through the problems and as always its good to see how other developers solve things, since they might have a way of doing it you hadn't thought of. I admittedly have found myself wishing I was in a pair on solo sprints just to have someone to bounce ideas off.

Bye bye fundamentals...But not really

This last week has seen a close to the "fundamentals block". The course has moved onto back end, I say a close , its more of a not going to be very formal thing, fundamentals are still going to be there, Were still going to be using them on every sprint and morning Kata, there just not being taught formally.

Now moving on to back end were going to be learning about everything from server/API's to Databases and I'm very excited for this, looking at the calendar where going to start building out some smaller projects that we can keep a hold of and use, In our Portfolios.

A few Notes, For this Blog going forward I hope to include more code Snippets where relevant or something I think was Just REALLY awesome,like a function I'm proud of or an interesting thing I learned, For this week, I've got a Snippet of how I used Axios to "Catch EM ALL, getting all Pokemon from the Pokeapi

const axios = require('axios');

axios.get("https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon").then((result) => {
    console.log(result.data.results);
}).catch((err) => {
    console.log(err)
});

I'm also hoping to write more blog Posts since I'm enjoying them.

2 for 1, Closure sale

Scott Wears — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 15:31:34 +0000

So this blogpost is going to cover two weeks of bootcamp (I was naughty and forgot to write last week).

Over the past 2 weeks of boot camp we have been covering the FUNdamental's of JavaScript, we have covered some lovely topics that have been pretty easy to get my head around but we have also covered some really abstract concepts that have been a lot harder to understand.

The main theme of the past two weeks have been Test Driven Development (TDD), the idea that we use testing to help us build up the complexity of our code while testing its functionality, this is a concept I've never looked into or thought about before, at fist it seemed pointless, normally I've only thought about just writing code and using console logs to make sure I got to where I was going (or trying to go), its also been an interesting experience in that we expect it to fail first so we can learn and fix it/build up its complexity after (RED, GREEN, Refactor).

the past couple of weeks we have also covered recursions and closure, Now I thought recursion was some mystical thing that you had to be a Sheldon cooper to understand but I was wrong, recursion at its basic level is pretty understandable, Closure how ever is a whole other story, I still don't feel like I understand closure fully, I know how to use it and I understand why it works and I hope for now that is enough.

OOP's

At the end of this week we covered OOP (Object Orientated Programming), this is a type of programming I love and I feel like I have a good handle on it, take a bike for example.

In OOP we have a bike, the bike is basic and has what we would expect, it has a seat, it has wheels and brakes, and it has a frame. the bike is out object.

class Bike{
    constructor(frame, wheels, seat, brakes, handleBars){
        this.frame = frame;
        this.wheels = wheels
        etc etc....
    }
}

Now using Classes. we can take this bike and use it as the base for other objects, we can extent bike into a "roads bike" this road bike is use for riding on roads so lets give it a bottle and some better handle bars, that might look something like this

class RoadBike extends Bike{
    constructor(waterBottle, roadHandleBars){
        super();
        this.waterBottle = waterBottle;
        this.roadHandleBars = roadHandleBars
        etc etc....
    }
}

I love this way of programming, using inheritance I can make more bikes with out having to define what a bike is every time.

So Now onto next week

Next week is making me nervous, on Monday we have "revision day", working alone we have to spend the day doing a solo sprint. This sprint will cover everything we have worked on in the last few weeks. I'm worried that I haven't picked everything up, or that I need to go back and add something to my "Big list of learning".

I mean its a good thing to identify holes in my knowledge just the name "Revision Day" makes it sound scary.

I'm still really enjoying the boot camp and I'm starting to come around to pair programming, its a little awkward at first but its awesome to have someone to work with and to bounce ideas off. I look forward to working with more of my peers in the future.

Boot Camp Week 1

Scott Wears — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:37:12 +0000

Week one is done,

I've finishes week one of boot camp, I need to say this upfront, I've done the basics of JavaScript before following a number of YouTube tutorials. but this time it was different.

I really enjoyed the conversation this week, Sat in lectures it was more than I expected, the lectures are to way, unlike a YouTube video I was able to ask questions and try and answer them, And the tutors aren't afraid to make mistakes. this is HUGE to me, A lot of the time when you watch something its edit all crisp and clean and it makes coding seem like this really impossible thing. but knowing that I'm not the only one making mistakes is a big thing for me.

So what did you learn?

This past week we concentrated on the basics of JavaScript and carried on from some of the things we learned during the pre course, we looked at the basic of the terminal and how to use git, All things I already have a firm handle on, sounds like it might be boring since I already had a good grasp of it right? far from it, its good to hear someone different explain things to you sometimes, they might explain it in a new way and it might just Click.

This week we also had a lecture on the sorcery known as RegEx, the secret of which until now seemed like a mystery, Just having someone explain it to me in a different way with different examples has made it more understandable, the same goes for the rest of the subjects we covered.

what did I like the most?

the best thing about this week has to be the structure of the boot camp, the days starts with a warm up, a small not too tough exercise to get your brain going, after that we move into lectures, the lecturer explains the topic in a really easy to understand way, after lectures we move to sprints, this is time for us to get going practicing what we have just covered, Its the same after lunch with a lecture and a sprint.

Anything I didn't like?

Not really anything I didn't like, I did find some of the extra challenges a little bit challenging but that's not always a bad thing. PAIR programming, I don't understand it yet I get the basic of it but the reasons make no sense yet, I get that 2 people sit at a computer and code but only one of them at a keyboard at a time makes no sense.

I'm looking forward to week 2, I look forward to the new things I'm going to learn, and if its anything like the first week its going to be very interesting.

EEEEP. Tomorrow is the day

Scott Wears — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 13:12:50 +0000

So Tomorrow I start a 13 week boot camp with NorthCoders

To say I'm excited is an understatement, Don't get me wrong I've done coding in the past, from a little Minecraft modding in Java to HTML and JavaScript. I even dabbled in python for a little. I enjoy coding and I think I'm Good at it. I enjoy the challenge of solving problems and implementing solutions, so why am I nervous?

I think I'm nervous because this is the first time someone will really judge my code, Someone is going to take the time to not only teach me, but to also let me know if I'm actually any good.

My hopes for the boot camp is that I learn more than I Know now, I want to grow as a developer. I want to be able to be confident enough to attend interviews and confident enough to share my experience and knowledge with others. I've been through "tutorial hell" and back, I also suffer from a lot of Impostor Syndrome, When I code I have that nagging feeling in side the little whisper of "Am I good enough" I want to use the boot camp to finally beat that feeling.

I watched a video by James Q Quick that has helped me prepare and I think anyone planning on attending a boot camp should check it out too.

I feel like my kids felt when going into a new school, a little exited a little nervous. Let's just see what the next few weeks bring..

Scott 0/