DEV Community: Shanise Barona

Pry baby

Shanise Barona — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 03:08:17 +0000

Originally posted on devdiary.club

There was a recent viral meme tweet that hit home in regards to my learning to code journey.

It me!

However recognizing this, this fear of failing to do something perfectly, is not something that was easy to identify in myself.

In fact, if you asked me, I'd say I'm pretty comfortable with failure. That I totally understand that in order to succeed, there will be failures along the way. I'd tell you about how I've failed publicly and been transparent about it. Like the time I attempted #100DaysofCode and only got to day 70...three times.

I've excelled at everything I've tried academically. That sentence feels wild and annoying to say but it's real. I was in advanced and AP classes in high school, I pursued Psychology with an emphasis in Economics in college and tested out of requirements for other courses. My challenges in college were mainly due to attending a PWI in small-town-racist-Pennsylvania and trying to survive that rather than anything academically strenuous. I wasn't even especially disciplined, just an avid reader with never-ending curiosity. And it was these experiences that have given me this faux comfortability with failure.

The Myth

Learning to code is one of the most challenging things I've ever done. It's also the first thing I've tried (that I've dedicated time, effort and resources to) that I haven't excelled at quickly. Somehow no matter how many Medium posts I read that explained how what I was feeling was normal, I managed to internalize that maybe coding was in fact something I could not do. It's made me cry, it's made me angry. I was feeling:

demotivated
uninspired
frustrated
confused
lost

Why has this been so hard for me to grasp? What can I do to set myself up for learning success? How do I stay motivated through the rough patches?

Whew chile, the despair!

The Solution

Pry is a ruby gem that is a type of REPL. REPL stands for read, evaluate, print, loop, and is an incredibly helpful program for debugging. I was already familiar with IRB, the interactive REPL that comes with Ruby, but apparently Pry had even more functionality. I've admittedly been avoiding pry since learning about it.

I understood that putting require pry at the top of a file and placing a binding.pry somewhere within a method did something but I didn't understand what to look for once in pry.

Recently a ruby problem caused me a lot of grief and the desert of despair and I became good friends. I tried everything and it felt like no matter what I did the tests remained failing.

I realized this type of coding could not go on. Just running tests, crossing my fingers, hoping for passing; and when it failed, not knowing which direction to head in.

I was going to have to learn pry and understand it to be able to troubleshoot this problem. Ugh, right? 😭 I'm sometimes in such a rush when coding that I have to remind myself, there is no race, no deadline, and nothing is urgent. Going back to learn something I should have dedicated time to learn earlier made me even more frustrated with myself. It felt like I was trying to go to the gym and work out all day, instead of going for 30 mins a day, 5 days a week, and expecting the same results. It didn't make sense. Cramming just wasn't going to work.

This avoidant behavior; that was a choice I was making. A bad one obviously. And it was kind of how I was approaching learning to code. I've never really had to do a thing I was bad at, and I've also never tried to keep doing a thing I felt I might be bad at. But here was coding saying "Not on my watch!"

Things I was doing a.k.a. a list of don'ts

being comfortable with being demotivated
not asking for help
not spending the time to use the resources available to me
trying to power through on a superficial understanding
feeling guilty about not coding a bit daily and overcompensating for it by rushing through lessons

Just because I poke fun at myself by tweeting about, for example, struggling with Javascript, doesn't mean I don't fear failure. In fact, I'm so not OK with failure that I've also been avoiding the successes. Being deliberate, disciplined and dedicated with my learning needed to be my new M.O.

This process is not linear and it's certainly not easy. Some things that have helped me are:

asking for help when you need it: it's easy to get demotivated when you spin your wheels on a problem. No shame in asking for help. Coding is a team sport!
being consistent: this is hard AF but arguably the most important. Discipline begets consistency.
tracking your time: it's eye-opening to see just how much time you are actually spending on a thing. Beating yourself up for not understanding recursion? Is it because you only spent 1 hour trying to learn it? Be gentle and reasonable with yourself.
learning how to learn: learning to code was different than anything I've learned before. I'm a native Spanish speaker, and had an easy time picking up French but programming languages were a whole new world. Figuring out how to learn and retain information best is more beneficial than knocking out X number of tutorials.
giving myself space to learn: I'm not ever going to know everything. What's simple to me might not be simple to you and vice versa. I used to self-deprecate when I couldn't solve a problem that felt "obvious" once I was told the answer. This was a disservice to myself and I just ended up frustrated. Instead of treating failed problems like a personal failure, I now treat them like a learning opportunity and welcome doing better next time.

Shout out to pry and that Ruby problem being the reality check I needed to prioritize my learning and personal growth.

Nevertheless, Shanise Coded

Shanise Barona — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 16:05:35 +0000

I began coding because...

It took me 23 years to realize I enjoy problem-solving. I appreciated the challenge I received in my science and math classes in high school. I loved the feeling of satisfaction after solving a difficult problem. Although, I did not particularly like science and math, just happened to be good at it. In other classes where there are more abstract ideas, like art and English, I felt too overwhelmed by possibility. I so desperately wanted to be creative but it seemed like it was a concept that was hard for me. Something was missing. After school, I lived on the internet, I grew up in the time of Neopets, then MySpace, then LiveJournal, then Tumblr. I had no idea that what I was doing on these sites was a little problem-solving mixed in with some creativity to get the segments on the pages to do what I wanted. A.K.A. coding. No one told me that this could be a job, a field of study or even a hobby at that. In fact, my favorite professor of my favorite class (AP Calculus) one day shared that he didn't believe girls should go to college. I was crushed. No one told me that wasn't true. And I didn't share these microaggressions with my parents because young impressionable girl... so I shoved it down as we often feel like we have to. My parents were always so supportive of me. I remember that when I told my mom I wanted to be an astronaut when I was six, she never forgot it. It wasn't until my senior year of college that I learned what computer science was and that it was a major. And by then I felt it was too late. But now, I have decided that it is in fact not too late to enjoy what I do and do what I am good at.

I can't wait to discover my niche and be the best I can be at it.

I'm currently ...

working my way through Flatiron's Full Stack Web Development Program! I've been enrolled in the program for a month and a half now and I am really enjoying it. I am also simultaneously working on a portfolio redesign for my website. The design part is stumping me. As I mentioned before, having too many options feels almost paralyzing. I end up going back and forth about the design so much that I design nothing in the end. Ha, work in progress for sure.

What I hope is...

that I am making a positive difference with the skills I am learning.

I am currently trying to accomplish this by getting involved in my local tech community. I volunteer often and it has been invaluable to my experience and journey into tech. Especially when I work with younger girls who are just as excited about technology as I remember being!

I want to provide representation for girls and women, especially those of color, immigrants, and members of LGBTQIA community. Representation matters and was one of the reasons why it took me so long to land on tech. I did not know anyone who looked like me working in a technical field. With that said, I look forward to the industry doing a much better job on inclusion of underrepresented groups and marginalized folks. We are all deserving of not only an entry to this space, but to be treated fairly and justly once we get there.

My advice for other women who code is...

You can do anything you want to do. You do not have to do it alone. Ask for help. Ask for resources. Get involved in your community, in whatever way works best for you. Lift as you climb. You are deserving of help, opportunities, and respect. Be gentle with yourself. Persist.

What I've Learned After Three Months of Coding (Almost) Daily

Shanise Barona — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:22:36 +0000

Focus is key. Maaajor key. This has been the single most important factor on my coding journey. And it's freaking hard. Because I donâ€™t just learn, I obsess. I want to know EVERYTHING there is to know and all at once and right now.

For awhile I didn't know where to start. Google has a nice list of where to start for those wanting to delve into technical development. I used this list, along with some others, and quickly found myself overwhelmed. No matter how many lists I read and how many times I tried to form my own list of what I should learn, I ended up frustrated. Then when I would take a break and get on social media, I would see someone tweet about â€˜Swiftâ€™ or â€˜Rubyâ€™ or â€˜css€™ and end up in a Google rabbit hole.

Technically, I was still learning, but I was not truly understanding. Most of the things I was reading about I could not do yet until I had learned other basic fundamentals first. This cycle continued until I made myself focus on learning one (or a few things) at a time. I enrolled in a Skillcrush Blueprint, and that aided in providing a more focused, structured learning environment. My experience with the online course made it easier for me when I supplemented my learning on my own time, without an instructor or classmates.

Readâ€Šâ€”â€ŠSearchâ€Šâ€”â€ŠAsk! Part of the reason I tend to skip around so much (and maybe you too) is because when I get stuck, I get frustrated and then distracted.
The first time I saw the â€˜Read-Search-Askâ€™ guideline was on FreeCodeCampâ€™s site and have practiced it ever since. As an avid reader, reading documentation has been very helpful and I find myself doing this the most.

When I canâ€™t find what Iâ€™m looking for in documentation, I turn to Google. Iâ€™m always pleasantly surprised to find that every code-related question Iâ€™ve googled (so far), has already been answered, mostly on Stackoverflow. As someone who tends putting off asking for help as a last resort, it can be reassuring to know thereâ€™s others out there, who once were exactly where you are.

Twitter is your friend. Social media has been quite handy during my coding adventures. I began following women in tech on Twitter. I figured that if they were successful in the field, then I wanted to know what they were thinking, reading, and tweeting. I started consuming whatever blogs they read and podcasts they listened to. This has expanded my knowledge in a way I never expected. There are some women I have been able to connect with online and/or in real life, and the support has been amazing.

But also, make real friends. At tech events. And meetups. And hackathons. Andâ€¦ well, you get the idea? You need to leave your house, get out there, and actually meet programmers. Itâ€™s intimidating, and nerve-wracking but keep doing it until itâ€™s not. I was terrified at the idea of going to tech events. I figured people were going to smell the â€œnewâ€ on me. I thought only ~super experienced~ coders went to these events.

Then I thought about how it doesnâ€™t matter, how no one would be daring enough to come up to me and tell me I did not belong. So I made myself go to a coding event after only having been coding for 2 weeks. And guess what? I didnâ€™t die. I had fun, learned a lot, and met some great people. At my very first meetup, I sat across from an awesome UX designer who partnered up with me and assisted me throughout the duration of the event. Only to find out after, once she gave me her business card, she was a co-founder of a local web and mobile development company. I would miss opportunities like this, to connect with local community [technology] leaders, if I had just let self-doubt win.

Up next: Iâ€™ve learned so much in such a short span of time, that Iâ€™m incredibly excited for whatâ€™s to come. Iâ€™m going to keep attending meetups. I plan to attend a hackathon before 2016 ends. I will be attending my first tech conference in November. I plan to continue fostering connections with other women and POC in tech. And my hope is to give back to others, in that sweet space where tech, social justice, and empathy intersect.