DEV Community: Ryan Whelchel

Day 37 of #100daysofcode: Ticking away

Ryan Whelchel — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 04:57:28 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Short check-in today.

I had to use a little regex in the project today, so I still have a bad taste in my mouth...

Today

LeetCode
Completed 9 remaining Intermediate Algorithms Challenges, completed the first project assignment for the FreeCodeCamp JS Course (4 remaining projects)

Upcoming

Study Aid App work
Finishing FreeCodeCamp
Look into AWS Certifications and LinkedIn Learning courses
Possibly laying out research topics -- My idea for this is that I lay out topics I think are interesting and then I spend a few days working on learning about these topics and construct a new blog post (separate from the challenge). We'll see if my interest holds here.

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp

Until next time! Stay safe everyone.

Day 36 of #100daysofcode: Coursework - Functional Programming with JS

Ryan Whelchel — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 03:25:50 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Today I pushed through all of the functional programming challenges of the FCC JS Course. I've previously written about my interest in functional programming here, and I think I may still end up spending some time writing some code in a functional way to get a better feel for it. At the moment, it still feels a bit like an "idea" rather than a "tool."

I will be reaching the project section of the FCC JS course soon, so if that is interesting I may write a bit about that. Otherwise I will be finishing this course pretty soon! Maybe I overestimated how dense these last sections were.

When I get back around to working on my project, I will need to refresh myself on Redux as well as code I've already written. I may use a post to help me direct my thoughts... We will see! Anyway, here is what I worked on today.

Today

LeetCode
Completed all 24 Functional Programming Challenges and 12 of the 21 Intermediate Algo Challenges in the FreeCodeCamp JS Course (9 remaining challenges)

Upcoming

Study Aid App work
Finishing FreeCodeCamp
Look into AWS Certifications and LinkedIn Learning courses
Possibly laying out research topics -- My idea for this is that I lay out topics I think are interesting and then I spend a few days working on learning about these topics and construct a new blog post (separate from the challenge). We'll see if my interest holds here.

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp

Until next time! Stay safe everyone.

Day 35 of #100daysofcode: OOP with JS

Ryan Whelchel — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 22:30:53 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Other than the post earlier today announcing my return, it has been quite a while since my last post. I have had a bit of inspiration since then, and I feel like I am coming back into this challenge with a fresher mindset. Part of that inspiration comes from companies I spoke to during the break who were interested in my blog and asked me a few questions about it. I thought it was really cool that my blog piqued their interest and it gave me a bit more motivation to get back on the horse.

What better way to get back into the swing of things than to work on a structured course? There are a total of 294 challenges in the FreeCodeCamp Javascript course, and of that 294, I have 71 remaining challenges as well as 5 Projects. I am unsure of how long the remaining challenges and projects will take, but I will be posting my progress as I chip through it.

Today

1-2 hours of LeetCode
Completed all 26 OOP Challenges in the FreeCodeCamp JS Course (45 remaining challenges)

Upcoming

Study Aid App work
FreeCodeCamp work
Look into AWS Certifications and LinkedIn Learning courses

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp

Until next time! Stay safe everyone.

Return of #100daysofcode: Taking Stock

Ryan Whelchel — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 21:35:39 +0000

Hello again everyone!

I hope everyone had a great holidays and a great start to the new year. It has been quite a while since my last post and I won't get into details as to why; let's just say it was an extended holiday!

I am coming back to this challenge with a fresh mindset and modified goals, so I want to quickly take stock on what I was working on prior to my hiatus and what my ideas are moving forward.

Previous Work/Goals

LeetCode -- This one is not going anywhere. I intend on keeping LeetCode as my "warmup" routine. I likely will only share details about LeetCode if it is something I find interesting.
Advent of Code -- While this was fun, it was no doubt a distraction from things I find more important. Perhaps I'll finish this up at some point, but I am going to focus harder on tasks I find important.
FreeCodeCamp - Javascript Course -- I initially misjudged how much of this course was left, so I have much more of this remaining than I realized. That said, I really want to finish this course, so this will be one of my main focuses going forward.
Study Aid App -- Another task I deem very important, especially since it has now been quite a while since I finished my previous app. This is going to be my other main focus.

Any other work I was involved with is going to be considered a distraction. Previously, I had trouble jumping around between everything I wanted to work on, and I feel it hurt productivity quite a bit.

Moving Forward

For a little while, I want to try spending a bunch of time focusing on one task instead of jumping around constantly to make the posts more interesting. I'll update in the future as to how I feel this is working.

Anyhow, here is a list of tasks that I will be working on, in order of importance:

FreeCodeCamp - Javascript Course
Study Aid App
AWS Certification

Note that the AWS Certification will not start until at minimum I have finished the FCC course, and may not start until after I have finished the Study Aid App.

Until next time!

Day 34 of #100daysofcode: Bit of Groundwork

Ryan Whelchel — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 22:57:08 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Today

LeetCode
Advent of Code Day 10
- Probably not going to catch up by Christmas, I still think this is really fun. I may alternate between Advent of Code and LeetCode instead of doing both
Some FreeCodeCamp
Setup DB (PostGres through Heroku), setup DB schema for a reminder (very tentative, unsure of how this will be structured in the end)

Towards the end of today's work, I started thinking about maybe sitting down with a sheet of paper and trying to write out everything I want to be included in this first draft of the project.

I read some discussion on projects in general and there seemed to be this sentiment floating around: "The only perfect code exists in projects which are perfectly understood beforehand"

This sounds like it probably has some truth to it. I think I will sit down and spend some more time thinking about and recording what I really want this project to be.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice, FreeCodeCamp progress and Advent of Code
Continue working on Study-aid-app
- Need to iron out how I want to handle user sessions. Considering using Google auth.
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: Possible Android app version of Study Aid app, AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Until next time! Stay safe everyone.

Day 33 of #100daysofcode: Revisiting Flask

Ryan Whelchel — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 22:41:03 +0000

Hey again everybody!

With so much of my focus lately being on React and Redux, I wanted to revisit Flask and get a better idea of what I should be doing with Flask when I am using it in tandem with React.

If you don't know, Flask is a web framework from which you can serve data to specific endpoints. That data can be HTML, which lets you host webpages using nothing but Flask and HTML, but it can also be JSON data which allows you to use your Flask server as an API.

My previous app used some Flask endpoints and some React-router endpoints as webpages. There were also some Flask endpoints which functioned as an API endpoint... but sometimes redirected you.

I'm really not proud of how the endpoints were structured in my previous app, so I'm setting out to make sure that my routing is as clean as possible and is as close to best practices as it can be.

Today

LeetCode
Bit of FreeCodeCamp
Set up the Flask backend, set up React routing, did some research on some best practices regarding using Flask with React routing

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice, FreeCodeCamp progress and Advent of Code
Continue working on Study-aid-app
- Need to iron out how I want to handle user sessions. Considering using Google auth.
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: Possible Android app version of Study Aid app, AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Day 32 of #100daysofcode: Structure and Flask

Ryan Whelchel — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 04:59:22 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Yesterday

Some random LeetCode Mediums
Advent Code Days 7+8
Reviewed tools which I am going to start off using
- React + Redux, Flask, going to try and use Material UI fundamentals when designing the front-end

Today

LeetCode LeetCode LeetCode
Advent Code Day 9
Reviewed the past couple projects which I used React+Flask
- I want to avoid repeating past mistakes; considering how to fix issues which I ran into. I need to treat Flask MORE like an API. I had a weird thing going on in a previous project where some endpoints were via Flask and some were via React routing. It wasn't the greatest.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice, FreeCodeCamp progress and Advent of Code
Begin the Study Aid app!
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: Possible Android app version of Study Aid app, AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Day 31 of #100daysofcode: Redux and The App

Ryan Whelchel — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 21:51:57 +0000

Hey again everybody!

Recently I've found that I have been structuring my work for the day in such a way that will give me a little bit to talk about in the blog posts. This is leading me away from working how I want to so I probably will not have a discussion every day.

That said I have a little to say. I missed yesterdays post, so as usual I'll tell you guys what I did work on yesterday and I won't count the day in the count to 100 days! At this rate it will end up being closer to 150 days of code.

Yesterday

Advent of Code Day 5
LeetCode Tree Problems
Drew out and scrapped a few ideas for how I want my app to look

The App

It's been a little while since I last discussed this app in any sort of detailed way. I want to quickly go over the main idea of this app, my initial expectations and how I want the app to grow from there. There are many features in this app that I am unsure of how to incorporate, so I will table them for now.

The Idea

Headliner Idea

"To truly learn something, you need to review it every so often after first encountering it"

Very simple idea that I think is easy to brush off. Think of how many times you have learned about something, but forgot about it by the time you needed it. This app seeks to ease the process of committing a piece of information to memory.

How?

By reminding you to check in with it!

It does not need to be for often, and you do not need to spend long reviewing to keep it fresh. This app will be seeking to streamline the entire process so that reviewing takes 10 minutes or less.

Every time you review the subject, the window for review increases. This window either caps out at a certain window of time or simply stops after a certain window.

The Flow

This is how I envision the general flow of a reminder working:
1) Learn about something that you want to commit to memory
2) Open The App, add new subject
3) Name it, paste a link or a quick description of the subject in question
4) Save!

The entire process has to be streamlined to be useful. There are default time periods for reminders, so you do not need to modify anything related to dates, the only important information you provide at event creation is the title and relevant information you need to study the subject.

Plans for First Sketch (Sprint? Version?)

The "First Sketch" of the app is going to be fairly barebones. I am going to refrain from any sort of notifications at first and, depending on tooling, I may even refrain from adding a calendar to start.

I think at first I will simply list the reminders in order of date. This date will be the "next reminder" date, and you will be able to postpone "next reminder" or be able to complete it early, which sets the event to the next window of time.

Today

More LeetCode Tree problems!
Advent Code days 6!
Spent a lot of time with Redux tutorials. Started sandboxing a little more with state.
Further thoughts on and planning for the Study Aid app.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice, FreeCodeCamp progress and Advent of Code
CONTINUED Sandboxing with Redux
Begin the Study Aid app!
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: Possible Android app version of Study Aid app, AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Day 30 of #100daysofcode: Re-ducks and Best Practices

Ryan Whelchel — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 01:23:20 +0000

Hey again everybody!

The more I get into Software Engineering, the more interested I am by current 'best practices'. Frequently I have run off writing code before thinking through the complete structure of an app and run into issues down the line due to organization of the code or something similar.

Issues like these are why best practices exist. Today I decided to jump into some of Redux's best practices; namely the structure of the app itself.

Redux Style

The official Redux Style Guide suggests using the (very modular) Ducks structure. Essentially, this structure follows the design pattern of "New Feature? New folder." I am not 100% sure, but this seems to be a newer development in Redux best practices. For example, favesound-redux splits files into "type" folders.

All the actions are shoved together, all the reducers are shoved together, etc...

I think this makes sense to some degree, but I largely agree with the Ducks model. If you are debugging an app, you want to be able to locate all files related to the feature you're debugging.

In this scenario, you can see that there is a features folder, which contains the todos feature.

I highly recommend you read the Style Guide for Redux if you have not already.

Today

More LeetCode Tree problems!
Advent Code days 3 and 4!
Learned from Redux Style Guide
Skimmed through a bit more of the Redux tutorial as well as the Redux FAQ Again

Tomorrow

Start the Study Aid app. I'm not done with my Redux journey, I still feel like there is way, way more to learn.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice, FreeCodeCamp progress and Advent of Code
CONTINUED Sandboxing with Redux
Begin the Study Aid app!
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Day 29 of #100daysofcode: Advent of Code!

Ryan Whelchel — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 06:42:35 +0000

Hey again everybody!

I didn't have any great time to set aside for digging deep on Redux, but I did make a ton of progress on the FreeCodeCamp certification for JS. I'm really aiming to finish that certification before January.

I also found something called Advent of Code! For those who don't know, Advent of Code is a fun, holiday themed coding challenge. Every day, tasks are released, similar to the 25 days of Christmas! Since I am participating in the #100daysofcode, it seemed fitting to also participate in the 25 days of coding-style challenge!
(it's also more fun and interesting than Leetcode grinding)

That said, Leetcode grinding is still in full effect, I'm pretty bitter about how weak I am in tree and graph problems, so I am going to continue grinding on those full force.

Today

LeetCode Tree problems!
Finished Debugging and Basic Data Structures sections in FreeCodeCamp, started Basic Algorithm Structures
Advent Code days 1 and 2! If I do 2 days worth of challenges per day, I should catch up by Christmas.

Tomorrow

I have two different plans for tomorrow. Either I dive a bit deeper on Redux or I start working on my project. I'm leaning towards diving deep on Redux, but I need to get my project off the ground to get a little motivation going.

If I learn more about Redux tomorrow, I will work on the following things tomorrow.
1) Learn more about Redux at a high level

Either by digging deeper on documentation or by finding an open source project which uses Redux fairly extensively 2) Try to recreate some of the more complicated state situations I ran into in a previous project. Depending on how this goes, I may share some code snippets.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice and FreeCodeCamp progress
CONTINUED Sandboxing with Redux
Begin the Study Aid app! (soonTM)
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Advent of Code

Day 28 of #100daysofcode: Hands on with Redux

Ryan Whelchel — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 01:52:59 +0000

Hey again everybody!

I want to start with a question: Do you know of a fairly complicated/extensive open source project which utilizes Redux? I would love to see some examples of Redux in bigger codebases!

Anyway, on to today's update.

As I expected, things with Redux started to feel a little weird when I started to get hands on with it. Now that I have started to work with Redux a bit, it feels like it would be very, very easy to write messy code with it. I feel like I need to spend some extra time really focusing on learning best practices with Redux. That said, the Redux toolkit is helping a ton with cleaning up potential mistakes.

I really like the general feel of:
1) Create a store for the entire app
2) Create a slice for a feature
3) Create a reducer for a specific function

It feels very familiar (and clean) from an object-oriented point of view, which is nice in this functional programming landscape of Redux.

Today

A bit of Leetcode
Hands on tutorial with Redux
- Sandboxed a bit with the Counter app. Added some additional functions.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I plan on doing two main things:
1) Learn more about Redux at a high level

Either by digging deeper on documentation or by finding an open source project which uses Redux fairly extensively 2) Try to recreate some of the more complicated state situations I ran into in a previous project. Depending on how this goes, I may share some code snippets.

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice and FreeCodeCamp progress
CONTINUED Sandboxing with Redux
Begin the Study Aid app! (soonTM)
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ

Day 27 of #100daysofcode: Redux, Redux, Redux!

Ryan Whelchel — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:33:30 +0000

Hey again everybody!
Finals are finally over! I am continuing the process of learning about Redux.

Redux Tutorials

Decided to make this its own section, because I want to discuss it a little bit.

The Redux tutorials are broken into 2 separate sections, Fundamentals and Essentials. Both seem like they are trying to teach the same thing, however Essentials starts with concepts and then moves forward to code while Fundamentals starts with code and tries to explain the concepts involved.

I decided to hop between the two, because I feel a mix of them is probably best for me. This does result in spending more time in the tutorials than I really want to however. Regardless, I have felt that it is worth my time as I have learned a lot.

I think that much of the code that I am learning will look a little different when I am using Redux Toolkit, so I will be jumping to Redux Toolkit first tomorrow to take a look at what the syntax of that looks like. After that, I am going to try and put some of the concepts I've learned to use in an app.

I still have a lot of the tutorial left, but it's hard to stick to learning in a tutorial without putting some of it to use, so I'll jump in head first and make a few mistakes tomorrow!

Past Few Days

Between finals and recharging, I haven't felt like diving in to anything new. That said I have continued working on previously mentioned tasks:

A lot of LeetCode practice!
- Still heavily focusing on trees. When I start a tree problem, my mind jumps to solutions that don't fit trees very well. I am trying to practice trees until I start to build good habits. I am surprised at how much trouble I am running into with trees, it's the first data structure that I have struggled with. I am planning on moving to more general graph problems after trees. If anyone has any recommendations for places to learn more about/dig deeper on tree algorithms and how to get a better sense for trees, please let me know!!
Continued working on FreeCodeCamp JS Cert
- My goal is now to finish this Cert before January
Brief scanning of Redux tutorials

Today

Here is what I worked on today!

A little LeetCode review and FreeCodeCamp Progress
- Reviewed some solutions today. I wanted to try and get a sense for how others approach tree problems, I feel that I fundamentally approach these problems incorrectly
Began digging deep on the official Redux tutorials
- See above

Upcoming

Continued Leetcode practice and FreeCodeCamp progress
Sandboxing with Redux
Begin the Study Aid app! (soonTM)
Might return to a little Functional Programming discussion
Later in the challenge: AWS Deployment, AWS Certification, and Using Docker!?

Resources

JS Course - FreeCodeCamp
Redux Essentials
Redux Fundamentals
Redux FAQ
Learn Redux - Programming with Mosh
Functional Programming in 40 - Russ Olsen with GOTO