DEV Community: nick-landas

General Advice for Flatiron Bootcamp SE Cohort Students

nick-landas — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 08:30:06 +0000

Phase 5, the last three-week unit of the software engineering program, is upon me! 12 weeks down. It's now solo project time then !bang...it's done.

Looking back, I would like to share some advice and insights that may help you navigate the course successfully.

Maintain Quiet, Balance and Perspective

First, make sure you have a quiet place to study with minimal distractions. A good pair of noise-cancelling headphones helps me to focus as well.

While spending gobs of hours in front of a screen appears noble, it's counterproductive. Far better to take regular, rejuvenating and relaxing breaks. Your body will thank you from your eyes to your derriere (excuse my French) and your back to your feet -- I have had many an eye-strain headache and sore bottom from not taking breaks or mixing up standing with sitting.

If you need reminders to take breaks, use a cool pomodoro gizmo like the one below or use your laptop/desktop/watch/phone's built-in timer features to set time intervals.

Ready ✔️, Set ✔️ Go!

You will have a structured day that begins with a morning cohort meeting followed by self-study of homework labs in the target languages(There are a lot of labs. My advice, follow your cohort leader's instructions on how to effectively approach them). Also, realize that the labs sometimes show clunky ways to solve a solution followed by a better way as a progression in order for you to develop a thought process that aids in your critical thinking/problem solving skills.

A one-hour lunch follows (don't eat a heavy meal! food coma onset...), then there is a 90-minute to 2-hr lecture covering important concepts that starts the afternoon portion of the school day. Even if you don't cover all of the labs, try to read the content-based assignments and watch the videos leading up to the lectures so you have an idea of where the lecturer is going and what they are doing.

Most lecturers do not recommend coding along. I second that. The live lectures will be uploaded for later review. Concentrate on active listening and take good notes (each lecture has a Google doc that provides a place to take notes, but take notes however you like). You can code along later if you replay the video as a way to review, which might be more effective.

With large cohorts, it's tempting to compare yourself with others. Don't! Compare===Despair. Measure your ability to grasp the necessary concepts for the particular learning unit you are in, not yourself with others. I've seen even the trailblazer students get bogged down on a solution. So, everyone hits barriers and has struggles. Seek help after a half-hour of genuine effort to solve a problem. Google the problem. Ask your fellow cohort mates, too, and of course, your instructors. I have found everyone to be very helpful.

Practice & Review Regularly

Usually, the Thursday(sometimes it could be on a Wed or Friday depending upon holidays, etc) of each 2nd week in a phase is a code challenge. They will have 3 or 4 practice code challenges that you should do --space them out over a period of time rather than doing them all at once-- Additionally, a mock code challenge released a day or two before the actual challenge is also given followed by your instructors working out the challenge solution later that day. Take careful note of how they go about tackling the problem systematically. You don't have to find the solution exactly the way they do, but their thought process and breaking down the problems into more manageable chunks could be a goldmine of wisdom for you.

It is important that you not try to match a coding pattern and apply it to every challenge. Why? Well, like a broken clock, at the most it will be right two times in the day but wrong all of the other times. Drilling down and understanding the fundamental concepts the unit teaches is the way to go. Apply that knowledge to the challenge rather than parrot a pattern that sometimes works but you don't really know why.

In addition to this, another effective learning tool is knowing how to test your code to see if it's doing what you want it to do. Do you know how to console.log() something or use the browser's built in developer tools to check for errors or bugs? Learn how to use them. You will learn a lot this way.

https://techdevblog.io/the-console-chronicles-your-guide-to-debugging-mastery/

https://coderpad.io/blog/development/javascript-debugging-in-chrome/

Undoubtedly, with repetition certain things will develop that "muscle memory." You no longer need a step-by-step guide to tie your shoe laces because you've done it thousands of times. Some things will come with unconscious effort while others you will find require you to still look up documentation again and again. But, if you've added reference skills as a normal part of your practice routine you'll likely find your solution.

Git going

Starting in week three of Phase 1 through Phase 4, you'll be paired with a cohort mate to come up with a project. For the rest of your coding life you will be using Git and Github. So, learn it early and become a master.

What are they and what's the difference? I offer this definition from W3Schools:

What is Git?
Git is a popular version control system. It was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005, and has been maintained by Junio Hamano since then.

It is used for:

Tracking code changes
Tracking who made changes
Coding collaboration

What does Git do?

Manage projects with Repositories
Clone a project to work on a local copy
Control and track changes with Staging and Committing
Branch and Merge to allow for work on different parts and versions of a project
Pull the latest version of the project to a local copy
Push local updates to the main project

Working with Git

Initialize Git on a folder, making it a Repository
Git now creates a hidden folder to keep track of changes in that folder
When a file is changed, added or deleted, it is considered modified
You select the modified files you want to Stage
The Staged files are Committed, which prompts Git to store a permanent snapshot of the files
Git allows you to see the full history of every commit.
You can revert back to any previous commit.
Git does not store a separate copy of every file in every commit, but keeps track of changes made in each commit!

Why Git?

Over 70% of developers use Git!
Developers can work together from anywhere in the world.
Developers can see the full history of the project.
Developers can revert to earlier versions of a project.

What is GitHub?

Git is not the same as GitHub.
GitHub makes tools that use Git.
GitHub is the largest host of source code in the world, and has been owned by Microsoft since 2018.

Here's a helpful tutorial for starting off your first pair project to set up your collaboration:

(https://medium.com/@keilalofra/pair-programming-a-github-guide-1d57ca1b5370)

Happy coding!

My name is Nick and I am an Impostor...but that's okay.

nick-landas — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 06:05:28 +0000

Impostor Phenomenon aka Impostor Syndrome

The Online Etymology Dictionary defines an impostor as:

impostor (n.)
1580s, "swindler, cheat," from French imposteur (16c.), from Late Latin impostor "a deceiver," agent noun from impostus, contraction of impositus, past participle of imponere "place upon, impose upon, deceive," from assimilated form of in- "into, in, on, upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + ponere "to put, place" (past participle positus; see position (n.)). Meaning "one who passes himself off as another" is from 1620s.

I also like the ring that charlatan has 😉:

charlatan (n.)
"one who pretends to knowledge, skill, importance, etc.," 1610s, from French charlatan "mountebank, babbler" (16c.), from Italian ciarlatano "a quack," from ciarlare "to prate, babble," from ciarla "chat, prattle," which is perhaps imitative of ducks' quacking.

Impostor or charlatan...either way I've struggled with feeling like this ever since I started studying software programming. Now, I'm not trying to stab anyone in the back or take credit for someone else's successes or falsify skills. Nevertheless, I cannot escape sensing that I am a deep fake from time to time. However, I am learning to embrace it.

Back in 1978, clinical psychologists Pauline Rose Clance, PhD and Suzanne Imes, PhD coined the term "impostor phenomenon" in their study of female professionals who dealt with the experience of feeling as though they were not qualified to have the jobs they did and just duped everyone(Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1978). Through the years this concept has trickled down to us as it is now most commonly called - impostor syndrome.

It is more accurate to call it a phenomenon or experience because it can be common to others in similar situations - in other words, it's 'normal'.That is why impostor syndrome is not really a syndrome; you do not suffer from an abnormality or condition. Feeling this way, in fact, can be a good thing if you can tame and control it. Let's learn some strategies to combat the feeling that you're a phony or just got lucky 🍀.

Knowing is half the battle

In Harvard Health Publishing, Peter Grinspoon, MD states, "Cognitive distortions are internal mental filters or biases that increase our misery, fuel our anxiety, and make us feel bad about ourselves." (How to recognize and tame your cognitive distortions). Elsewhere, Anna Womack, PhD shares in her article Do You Feel Like a Fraud? Maybe It’s Impostor Syndrome (MCCBT Blog), "Typically, people who experience impostor syndrome have self-doubt or second-guessing thoughts that make negative assumptions, minimize accomplishments or disqualify the positive. These are sometimes referred to broadly as cognitive distortions." She goes on to identify some examples of how this plays out in our minds:

“Everyone else knows more than me. I shouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve only worked here for a few years, I’m not good enough to apply for a promotion.”
“I’ve had some training in this area, but my colleague is better at this than me.”

But, just knowing that this is a distortion and not reality empowers us. Yay!

Womack and Grinspoon don't leave us hanging with just identifying the problem, they also offer practical solutions to challenging and taming this specific cognitive distortion as do other specialists that I'll share with you.

Fight the faker fear

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Regarding knowing being half the battle, Grinspoon adds this, "A big part of dismantling our cognitive distortions is simply being aware of them and paying attention to how we are framing things to ourselves. Good mental habits are as important as good physical habits. If we frame things in a healthy, positive way, we almost certainly will experience less anxiety and isolation. This doesn’t mean that we ignore problems, challenges, or feelings, just that we approach them with a can-do attitude instead of letting our thoughts and feelings amplify our anxiety."

As far as framing things in a healthy positive way goes, we need to fight the temptation to "compare and despair" as media consultant Susan Harrow shares with Forbes contributor Mark DeVries. When faced with those who are "impressive" Harrow says, “Instead of staying in the feeling of jealousy or less-than-ism, replace it with a generous thought about the person who has triggered you. Research confirms that this will instantly make you feel good, which is reflected in your energy that others perceive.”

Good mental habits are as important as good physical habits.

Others are not a threat. I can appreciate those who are more fluent in a coding language than I am or who grasp concepts more readily than I do. They can help to set a bar or benchmark for me that I perceive as a good standard to motivate me, not drive me to despair.

Clinical psychologist Jessica Varland, PhD notes that, "You don’t have to lower the bar, but adjusting your standards for success can make it easier to see and internalize your accomplishments. Vanderlan suggests focusing on your progress rather than aiming for perfection"(Palmer).

Building on this idea of progress over perfection is the idea of celebrating successes and victories. Did you make it from phase 1 to phase 2? Put a check ✔️ by that! Why not create a physical reminder of those things by way of a checklist or a journal of victories? These facts can help quell the impostor feelings. Professor of educational psychology Kevin Cokley, PhD reminds us that, "The accomplishments don’t have to feel significant. “It can also be little things that, taken together, show you to be an incredibly competent, high-functioning professional..."(Palmer).

Don't forget, small iterations are like practice reps that, done properly, yield big results over time as they are repeated. “Creating practices that you do daily become embodied with consistent iteration so the moments you get triggered happen less often and lessen in intensity,” says Harrow. Remember, you can't eat an elephant in one go. But you can eat a whole elephant one bite at a time. 🐘 Steady and consistent reps...

Which brings me to this. Stop beating yourself up for a misperceived lack of ability or progress and quit being hard on yourself by playing mind games or letting systemic barriers or unrealistic expectations within your family or culture hold you back. Surround yourself with community who support your goals and, as writer Chris Palmer notes, "cultivate self-compassion." To paraphrase something that Susan Harrow said, "You don't have to lie to yourself and say your bold or confident when you're not. But you can tell yourself, "I don't know how to do this...yet I'm going to ask, research and learn how." That is a positive and healthy mindset.

Stop beating yourself up!

Finally, embrace and accept that the impostor experience will come and go through different periods of your life when making career and social shifts. But, you no longer have to fear it! 🎃👻

Having good mental habits, charting incremental improvements and progress(sometimes big ones!) to track the facts, and surrounding yourself internally and externally with a compassionate self and others will help mitigate those negative feelings and lessen their frequency.

Cheers to you!

Sources:

DeVries, H. (2022, December 21). 3 Ways To Let Go Of Imposter Syndrome And Shine In The Media Spotlight. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/henrydevries/2022/12/21/3-ways-to-let-go-of-imposter-syndrome-and-shine-in-the-media-spotlight/?sh=74b39cec650b

Grinspoon, P., MD. (2022, May 4). How to recognize and tame your cognitive distortions. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-recognize-and-tame-your-cognitive-distortions-202205042738

Palmer, C. (2021, June 1). How to overcome impostor phenomenon. APA.Org. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/06/cover-impostor-phenomenon

Womack, A., PhD. (2022, March 6). Do You Feel Like a Fraud? Maybe It’s Impostor Syndrome - MCCBT Blog. Manhattan Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. https://www.manhattancbt.com/archives/6758/impostor-syndrome/

Style a React Navbar -beyond the basic colors.

nick-landas — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:20:06 +0000

Experimenting with React Bootstrap

So, you're a in a coding bootcamp, or you're a self-learner or have been "voluntold" by your boss and are learning Javascript. You've made it past the first wave of information and have leveled up to React. It's time for another project and you're eager to add more sophisticated styling and responsiveness to your application this time.

Navigation Bar (navbar)

You've heard about React Bootstrap and want to add a navigation bar(navbar) [(https://react-bootstrap.github.io/components/navbar/)].

I believe that you are up to the task and render the navbar to your screen successfully, which is the assumption I'm making going forward.

Following the React Bootstrap guide, you see in one of their styling options that there are three examples of colors used:

import Container from 'react-bootstrap/Container';
import Nav from 'react-bootstrap/Nav';
import Navbar from 'react-bootstrap/Navbar';

function ColorSchemesExample() {
  return (
    <>
      <Navbar bg="dark" variant="dark">
        <Container>
          <Navbar.Brand href="#home">Navbar</Navbar.Brand>
          <Nav className="me-auto">
            <Nav.Link href="#home">Home</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#features">Features</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#pricing">Pricing</Nav.Link>
          </Nav>
        </Container>
      </Navbar>
      <br />
      <Navbar bg="primary" variant="dark">
        <Container>
          <Navbar.Brand href="#home">Navbar</Navbar.Brand>
          <Nav className="me-auto">
            <Nav.Link href="#home">Home</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#features">Features</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#pricing">Pricing</Nav.Link>
          </Nav>
        </Container>
      </Navbar>

      <br />
      <Navbar bg="light" variant="light">
        <Container>
          <Navbar.Brand href="#home">Navbar</Navbar.Brand>
          <Nav className="me-auto">
            <Nav.Link href="#home">Home</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#features">Features</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#pricing">Pricing</Nav.Link>
          </Nav>
        </Container>
      </Navbar>
    </>
  );
}

export default ColorSchemesExample;

As you read the documentation, you see the following:

You notice it states that there is a bg prop that determines the background color of the navbar while the variant dark or light provides a complimentary font color to the listed Navbar.Brand and Nav.Link routes.

Unlike the code block in this article, the React Bootstrap's code block example is a sandbox that will allow you to experiment with the bg and variant color schemes. It appears obvious that "dark" produces the color black and "light" produces a smoky white or very light gray color.

Why is the blue navbar named as "primary", though? In the sandbox you tinker around and substitute plain ol' "blue" instead and it breaks. Trying other colors such as "green" or "red", etc. all fail.

It turns out that the bg color class takes a different naming convention for colors. They are called contextual/theme colors.

[https://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap5/bootstrap_colors.php]

Armed with this new knowledge, you try "danger" and voila! You're now playing with coding fire 🔥!

Now, change the variant to "light" and try the theme color "warning" to get yellow with a dark font color.

Big Bird would be proud!

Beyond the primary colors

Okay, you've got that feather in your cap. But you want festive! Remember, the documentation allows for some custom css styling here. So, what else can we do?

Taking an example from another project, let's change the bg color class variable by giving it a name of "myColor". Feel free to name your variable whatever you want.

import Container from 'react-bootstrap/Container';
import Nav from 'react-bootstrap/Nav';
import Navbar from 'react-bootstrap/Navbar';
import '../App.css';

function NavBar() {
  return (
    <>
        <Navbar bg="myColor" variant="dark" sticky="top">
        <Container>
          <Navbar.Brand href="#">U*niQ Pet Adoption Agency</Navbar.Brand>
          <Nav className="ms-auto">
            <Nav.Link href="#home">Home</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#pets">Pets</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#owners">Owners</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#application">Application</Nav.Link>
            <Nav.Link href="#contact">Contact</Nav.Link>
          </Nav>
        </Container>
      </Navbar>
    </>
  );
}

export default NavBar;

I'll use App.css to hold my styles for this example. Don't forget that you need to import your css file into the component where your navbar is and with the appropriate path!

I add this styling inside my App.css file:

.bg-myColor {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to right,#823604,#f96400 )
  }

It, in turn, produces the following:

I am using a two-color gradient here that will go from one color choice to the other gradually. The direction of the color change will go from left to right. I'm going from a darker to a lighter orange in this case.

Here's the basic syntax structure:

background-image: linear-gradient(direction, color-stop1, color-stop2, ...);

As noted in the basic syntax above, an ellipsis ... follows color-stop2 which means you can add multiple colors. You can literally create a rainbow if you wanted to.

Your gradient can also go from right to left, top to bottom or vice-versa, diagonally etc. See all the documentation here for the kaleidoscope of choices you have!

[https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_gradients.asp]

Okay, one more, I promise. Let's go crazy!

.bg-myColor {
  background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom 
  right,#7708ae,#6c0850,#b14861 )
}

This one uses three colors and works diagonally from top left

to bottom right.

This was one down-n-dirty way to accomplish some styling for the navbar. Here's another helpful site to inspire you.

[https://codingyaar.com/responsive-bootstrap-navbar-change-background-color/]

Of course, incorporating Sass would open up even more options for color schemes, I suppose. I hope some of you found this useful.

Happy coding and Happy New Year!

Alive and kicking: You're not too old to start a career in coding.

nick-landas — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 06:35:34 +0000

A crossroads

After just over 20 years in law enforcement on the west coast, I stood at a crossroads: Do I continue in a field that I am competent in and still physically capable of doing though experiencing some jadedness? I initially answered my question by choosing to remain in law enforcement but doing so at a different department and in a different state that was closer to extended family. I believed the change would revive and refresh me professionally.

A chapter closes

However, within a few months of being at the new department, I came to the conclusion that my time as an officer was complete. This chapter in my life was over. The community appreciated us and the town enjoyed a high-degree of safety. But I sensed in myself a lack of desire to work in this field. I did not want to be one of those who "quietly quit" and just received a paycheck and benefits as some could be tempted to do.

What's next?

After personally dodging the COVID bullet for three years, It finally got me despite ample vaccinations. During my down time, I had plenty of moments to spend with my thoughts and made the decision to resign from the department. I knew I could no longer be a police officer. But what could I do that was professionally and intellectually challenging and had social value? What interests did I have? What schooling or training might I need?

A promising path - but clouds of doubt loom on the horizon

It was during this time that I researched potential career paths and reached the conclusion that software engineering was the front runner for all the things on my checklist. But what to do next? I was on the verge of reaching the standard speed limit of 55 as far as age goes. I thought, "Will ageism be a factor?" and "Can I actually learn this material?"

Fears averted

The good news is that the field of coding and programming is ripe with stories of people who are career changers or transitioning from being full-time homemakers to successful software engineers.

Never too old

The other good news is that you can do it! In fact, scientists say that learning languages (even artificial ones) is beneficial to the neuroplasticity of our brains. Babies and small children aren't the only ones whose brains can adapt.

Coding similar to language learning

Re-shape your brain
How to exercise your brain

Coding sucks...sometimes

Don't assume coding will be easy, though. There will be times of genuine struggle that probably have nothing to do with age - it's just the nature of the beast that coding is: everyone hits obstacles and roadblocks in their learning.

Although it took me a second round to accomplish it in phase 1 of my coding bootcamp, the ideas and concepts of coding (for me - JavaScript) have firmed up and I am looking forward to the next phase.

As the ancient Roman programmer Codicus (😉)once said, "Amplecti Sugentus" or more simply put, "Embrace the Suck." Commiserate with your fellow younger coders and let them know there will be similar frustrating and trying moments in their lives in other areas beyond coding. Opportunities may arise for you to speak truth gleaned from your many years on this earth into the life of a younger software engineer/coder/programmer that will save them heartache in those non-professional areas.

Don't be afraid - "Try not! Do or do not! There is no try!"

You CAN do it if you're willing, determined, dedicated, undaunted and undeterred. Let the professional world know that you're still "Alive and Kicking" and have plenty of gas left in the tank and plenty to offer their company.