DEV Community: strawberries73

The Climb: Software Developer Journey

strawberries73 — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 03:33:00 +0000

School…… it truly is a beast onto its own. I heard that Seneca college has a great reputation of producing good software developers. It wasn’t even a graduate of Seneca that told me this. Being in my 40s, meant I had to study a little harder than most but “tenacious” is my middle name. Haha! Seriously though it was rough and becoming a developer. Definitely not for the faint hearted. It’s best not to be intimidated though. Face the challenges head on. Building a foundation for Software development required experiences that take you way out of your comfort zone. For someone who is new or considering Software development as a career, I have some recommendations that will make the journey a little less painful.

For starters you should probably get acquainted with basic programming. Learning the basic theory will help develop some understanding as you learn more difficult practices later. You have to learn how to think like a programmer. Try not to sweat the small stuff because it WILL come to you. Remember to be patient with yourself and don’t rush progress. Free courses and tutorials like w3schools and more will help you understand things like Encapsulation, Polymorphism and Abstraction. Those 1% of you who naturally get 99% in your programming courses… You are so lucky!! Remember that it’s better to try for those high grades. If you do badly on a subject, take it again. Retaining that foundational knowledge is your key to success.

This field is a vast range of options when it comes to jobs. There are easy jobs that require teams to work together and there are jobs that require a lot of struggles with strict deadlines. Finding what is right for you is up to the individual and what your goals are in your career. Keep an open mind about everything because you never know where your interests may end up. I know this from experience. In my first year, I didn’t want to touch web programming in JavaScript. Absolutely hated JavaScript. Now my preferred languages are C# in .Net Frameworks and JavaScript!

After everything is over, and I evaluated my experience. I’d say it was worth it! The struggles, the victories are minor compared to the sense of accomplishment gained. I can’t speak for everyone, but the experience gave me some personal growth. Time well spent! Also leads to a great career! So be brave and reach for the stars….. I mean computer!

OSD600 - Release 0.4 First PR - Front end Glory

strawberries73 — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 02:33:11 +0000

Here at Seneca OSD600 is an Open Source development class where we learn how to contribute to open source and manage our own projects. For Release 0.4 we are required to contribute 3 PR's (pull request). I found this issue on telescope. The problem was that there was a wrong function name in a file. I changed the function name and created my PR. Right then discovered two errors, one of them was in another file. That error became a new issue on telescope as it was unrelated to what I was working on.

At first it was suggested that I change onScroll to onClick, however in this error the onScroll prop needed to be added in the propTypes. I added the onScroll to the propTypes and waited for the approvals. Horay, approvals came in and my changes were merged.

Somehow in this process, I became more familiar with the telescope project and how it works. Even recently I asked a friend to share what he was tried to do for another class. I think for the first time I looked at a new project I understood what they were trying to accomplish. Of course this one was much smaller then telescope. I feel like I made progress!

OSD600 Release 0.4 Second PR - Search Button revisited

strawberries73 — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 01:36:44 +0000

For anyone reading this for the first time, here at Seneca OSD600 is an Open Source development class where we learn how to contribute to open source and manage our own projects. For Release 0.4 we have to contribute 3 PR's (pull request). This contribution I have tried this issue before and failed. You can read about it on "Tenacious".

This time I read, I studied and then studied some more. I started practicing. I am determined to learn more about CSS. What was so confusing about this process is that I didn't know the best way to do this. There is several approaches but what one works best without disrupting the flow of the telescope search. The biggest struggle I had was that when I was able to get the search button in the right place, it was completely hidden behind the search bar.

I was just about to give up hope but then the solution came into view. I had to blink. I couldn't believe it.... there it was! I laughed(almost crying). My teenagers probably thought I'd really gone loony. School killed what was left of my sanity that they didn't take.

My PR was created. Alas! I was given two approvals and my contribution was merged.

Wise words from my professor "it's important to learn how to fail at technical challenges for the right reasons, and in the right way". Whoah! I know this already but lost site of this in my journey through school so focused and absorbed into doing my best. As they used to say when I was a kid "I gave it 120%". I swear sometimes I was giving 150%! A reminder that as important it is to work hard, it is important not to neglect one self. Thank you to all whom supported me through this contribution and through my program at Seneca.

OSD600 - Lab 9 The last one!

strawberries73 — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 00:26:58 +0000

The last lab of OSD600 at Seneca is finally here! What a ride! In this Lab 9 requires us working on a CI/CD pipeline. I used Node.js for my Link Checker. The first step was that I needed to set up an npm before I got started. I implemented my packaging steps and then created the tag.

Once the process was finished, my Link Checker project was published. To be honest, this was simple to set up. My partner tested mine and I tested his. Surprisingly went well!

As we approach the final week of the semester at Seneca, I feel weary and wired! Looking back I feel like it was all worth the struggle. Part of me feels sad in a way that this is my last. Several times I had questioned why I was taking Computer Programming and Analysis. I take great pride in being a highly intelligent individual. This program has truly humbled me in every way. I've lost count the amount of times I have felt so stupid. Like why can’t I just get it?! Yes! I'm here, the final week not just of the semester but also the program. I am truly thankful for the professors I had, for the struggle and for the friends I have made. Cheers to you all!

OSD600 - Lab8 Did you say test?

strawberries73 — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 22:13:55 +0000

This week in OSD600 (Open Source development) at Seneca, Lab8 required us to set up testing framework for our Link Checker, write the test and include a test for 200 and 404 Responses for a given URL. We had to add code coverage analysis and then merge the testing into our project. Then we had to add continuous integration and add a test to someone else's project.

Since my project is in node.js I needed to do the necessary reading to figure out how I was going to create this test. I created an index.test.js file that runs the test and then added code that supported the test in my Link Checker. After I ran the test I saved, commit my changes to the testing branch and created the PR and merged testing.

The next thing I had to do was supposed to be simple. I had a file path issue when I tried to create the PR to Test my CI. As a student, our knowledge only goes so far. I tried to move the packages.json and that didn't work. I consulted some friends in and out of the class. Seemed like I ran in full circle ending up back with the same issue. I tried so many things that I have a very long list of commits to the branch. After 4 hours of not being able to figure out what to do, our awesome professor came to my rescue. Something I need to pay attention to when creating a project. File path is important and obviously I need more practice. After I created the node.js.yml and made the PR, the file path was fixed and merged to my project.

I will admit, I was a little hesitant creating a test for my friend's Link Checker. I added more to his test and then noticed he had some minor errors. I fixed the errors and then tested his project. All was good so I proceeded to create the PR. My friend happy with the test and the fixes, he merged this PR.

Now that I've learned more about testing, I feel that it is important to learn more. I need way more practice of course and I'm sure that these mistakes I've made along the way won't be the last. I also feel like I have barely scraped surface of the knowledge on how to use git. When I'm finished, I will get to reading that git book I purchased!

OSD600 - Release0.3 New PR since the last disaster.

strawberries73 — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 20:39:11 +0000

OSD600 is an Open Source development class where we learn how to contribute to open source and manage our own projects. My previous PR for Release0.3 proved to be more difficult then anticipated. I needed to find something else. I wrote about this in my previous blog. I've discovered that CSS has varying levels of difficulty depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

I searched on telescope, where I found another "Issue" in front end to work on. In this PR I needed to remove files from the project. After careful searching I found the files. I removed the files in the command line and saved. It was now time to run telescope and ensure everything worked fine and the removal of the files didn't effect the project. Everything seemed to be fine so I created the Pull Request. Still feeling defeated by my last PR, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Exhale... Voila! My PR was merged.

I conclude that school often creates anxiety for most. The pressure of learning new things and completing the work assigned within the time allotted. Learning new things is one of my favorite things to do but much easier when done at your own pace. Now I'm really looking forward to leaning more after my semester is complete!

OSD600 - Release 0.3 Tenacious!

strawberries73 — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 06:58:48 +0000

Once again in OSD600 I needed to find an issue to work on. For those of you who didn't read my previous blog, I am taking an "Open Source" course at Seneca. In this course we were assigned Release 0.03 where we have to contribute to telescope. Telescope is an open source web server and client application that displays a timeline of Seneca Student's open source blogs. In my first issue for this release I focused on CSS. I decided I needed more practice and sought out to find another CSS related issue.

In this issue I needed to move the location of the search button. I was thinking... this shouldn't be too hard right? I went to work diligently. I thought if I just get this done soon, then maybe I'll finally have no homework on the weekend.

My beginning results were great! Or so I thought. The button stayed lined up to the right of the textbox nicely. After I was satisfied I pushed to GitHub and created my PR.

I learned quickly that my button relocation had a fault. On the mobile device view, my button was going off screen. EEESH!

I really needed to figure this out. I put out the word so see if anyone had an idea what I could do. A classmate had a brilliant idea to use InputAdornments. I went to work on this but found out quickly that I was having issues and getting an error. I tried for two days, not doing much else I might add. Even after getting a walk through with the professor, neither of us could figure out the problem. After 4 days total on this issue, I was becoming quite discouraged. It was time to take a step back for an evening.

I arose at 6:30AM the next morning and started to take a look. Then it hit me. For some reason my master was not updating the telescope's master despite having already set up a remote. After some efforts to fix this problem, I need to be able to get the latest update from telescope for future PR's. After I set everything up, I added the InputAdornment and created my PR. Stress can create brain fog. In my haste to finish this PR I had not realized that there was a new upgrade to the input search in the project, so my inputAdornment needed to be added in two files. I started to get upset with myself at this point. If I had just noticed from the beginning that my telescope master wasn't the latest version, I could have resolved this and been done already, but noooo not me. I like to do things the hard way right? I really don't.

So I proceeded to put the adornment button into AuthSearchInput and PostSearchInput files. Wait, this isn't what I thought this would do.

This is horrible. At least the search works right but not the results I was hoping for. I tried for hours to fix this. I worked on this for 4 days straight and this is as far as I got. At a loss of what to do, I still kept working through the weekend in hopes of figuring it out. I felt utterly defeated.

Tenacious is the word that I've been told describes me. Quitting is a last resort. Of course I know that sometimes it is the only option. In this case, I just need to take a break and get some fresh eyes on this issue. I need to remind myself that I don't have to figure everything out by myself. Until I can fix this issue, I have a draft PR. Encouraging words from my professor make me feel less like a failure and remember that all new things take time to learn. I am a student after all.

OSD600 - Release0.3 Telescope CSS

strawberries73 — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 05:45:04 +0000

In Open Source Development course we were assigned Release 0.3 where we get to contribute to Seneca-CDOT/telescope. Telescope is an open source web server and client application for displaying a timeline of Seneca's Student blogs about open source. This project seemed so large. I was as nervous as the first time I had to sing a solo on stage knowing the local Toronto news station would be filming it! I needed to find my first issue. So I crossed my fingers and hoped to find something.

The task proved to me to be more difficult then I anticipated. A huge reminder of how green I am! After reading through what felt like 50 issues, I requested some guidance and I was assigned my first Issue-1344 on telescope. I took some time to acquaint myself with telescope. I know the best way to become more comfortable is to do things multiple times. So I kept going back to it and running it. I started playing with the CSS part. I had almost no experience in CSS, so I also took quite a bit of time reading up on W3 Schools and styled-jsx. Thankfully I love reading!

Both anxious and excited, I dove in. Changing some numbers, just to what happens. I needed to figure out where to add a margin and found myself getting a little flustered. Eventually I figured out where to add the code and started my PR.

Not sure if it would be accepted, I nervously waited. I had to be reminded about how to contribute properly giving details of what I did and what Issue I fixed. Of course I learned that before but I was so focused on the project's PR, I'd forgotten. Once everything was up to standard my PR was merged. Whew! Next!

Thankful for the experience but wow, what an eye opener of how I need to do more reading. I want to be better at CSS. I know from personal experience that the only way to get better at something is to get more practice!

OSD600 - Lab 7 Static analysis tools

strawberries73 — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 04:55:03 +0000

This week in Open Source development for Lab 7 we learned about how and why you would want to add helper tools to your project. The objective was to set up a contributing guide and set up tools to ensure that new code that enters your repository is formatted the same and lint free. Eeesh! I did not realize how many bells and whistles you can add to one project. My curiosity was sparked though.

The first thing I needed to do was create my branch from my URL Link-Checker. The second thing I did was create a CONTRIBUTING.md file. The next thing was to set up a source code formatter and I am using JavaScript, so I went with Prettier. I created a .vscode folder that holds settings.json.

After I tested this to make sure it worked, I moved on to the next task. Set up a linter with ESLint. This is especially good for Javascript because we don't always need a semi-colon. Consistency is key.

I tested my code and added some mistakes on purpose to make sure prettier and lint were working. Happy with the results I rebased and squashed my commits and then merged.

I look at it this way. A project is an investment and it's about protecting that investment from looking like a bad reno job. Keep the code pretty.... make sense to me! Order is peace of mind. Um... I'm not OCD at all...

OSD600 - Lab 6 Setting up Telescope and creating a gist

strawberries73 — Sat, 07 Nov 2020 22:16:54 +0000

This week in OSD600 Lab, we had to set up the Telescope environment. Then we had to use the Telescope REST API with our Release 0.1 that we had done previously in the semester. After following all the instructions, we had to create a gist.

Setting up Telescope was not as difficult as I had thought. Once Docker was set up I had to open the Power Shell on my laptop and type the command from the Lab 6 instructions in the environment set up guide. I opened Visual studio code and ran Telescope's back end from there. I checked local host 3000 to see if I was getting the right stuff! Then after a few minutes I opened up Bash and typed npm run develop. I held my breath... surely this can't be that simple. It started the process and then stalled partway through. I quit 2 times and restarted before it finally worked. Opened Local host 8000 to confirm everything was up and running. Thank goodness that's over!

Now I needed to take my existing code from that checks URL's and add code to read Telescope's data to get the last 10 posts indexed. After much discussion with a few friends and reading up on node.js I decided to make a function to fetch the data and print it to a text file. After I did that, I tested it. Then I realized that every time I ran my code, it kept adding to the txt file. I used truncate and tested that. For some reason I was over thinking this part of the lab. Combination of fatigue and other outside unavoidable distractions.

After I had finished, I pushed the changes to the branch and created a PR, checked if everything was ok. Copied the changes for creating my gist. Then I merged. Once I created the gist, I was thinking there should be an option on GitHub to copy the diff to a gist. Ambitious maybe?

After all this... Wow! This was pretty cool! I felt pretty proud of myself for the smooth set up and my fiancé said it looked like the matrix on my screen! HAHAHA!

The Final PR... Face Palm Worthy. What a disaster!

strawberries73 — Fri, 30 Oct 2020 21:01:01 +0000

The Hactoberfest nightmare begins...First I tried to run this dotnet/aspdotnetcore but I could not because it was not able to read my versions of SDK. I downloaded the correct version and still had the same issue. My gut told me to talk to tech support but no not me, I like to do things the hard way. So I get this idea to uninstall VS19 (Visual Studio 2019) and then re-install it after with needed software to open the project. Unfortunately a file was corrupted and I was unable to uninstall the software despite repairing it. Eventually I figured out that all I had to do was go into add/remove programs and choose to modify, then pick the version I want added to VS19. Yep, I did that. I had a back-up plan... in fact I had two. I go to look at the first "back-up" issue to discover it had been closed. Oh well, I will go to the second one. Low and behold it was closed too. Oh boy, now what?

Back to the Hacktoberfest website and find something not C#, feeling a little defeated. I found something. opendrinks, they were requesting contributors to include a drink recipe and/or fix some errors. The Chef in me said YES! Well... I know it is no where near as difficult as my third PR but at this point, time was an issue. I searched in the project to see what they had and then had to figure out what to include. Once I found my recipe, a "Galaxie" cocktail that changes colors. I went to work testing the program and looking through to find errors I can fix. I found a few. Missing information, a URL that did only led you to a 404 page and some inconsistencies that could be fixed to help the outcome be much nicer. I finished and did my PR. It wasn't over yet though. One of the files I fixed had a conflict. I fixed the conflict and then everything cleared. Edits and additions were merged!

I should be happy, but I still feel defeated. I was looking forward to doing more C# but due to software issues, I had to step away and go back to javascript. It's like something in the Universe keeps telling me to get into javascript. When I get my VS19 fixed, I will seek the opportunity to contribute to that original project. At the end of this Hacktoberfest, it was an enjoyable experience. I definitely plan to do this again.... only next year I'm going to get my son to participate as well! He is in his first semester of Computer engineering. Oh you should see the faces of my family members when we start chatting about coding! Haha!

Hacktoberfest - The 3rd PRRrrrrr... hmmm...

strawberries73 — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 03:55:50 +0000

For my third contribution for Hacktoberfest, I wanted to contribute to a C# project. I browsed the Hacktoberfest website and came across UtilityBelt. I looked at the files to see if this was something I'd like to try... I think C# has become one of my favorites. So um...Utility Belt, a console application that handles multiple smaller console applications using API's. Completely unsure of how I was going approach this and the format of the project was unique in comparison to what I have seen before. At Seneca I had taken a web class on ASP.NET using C#. The only thing is, I had not looked at C# since the Hackathon in June!

I created my branch and then just sat there. Reading the project so I could figure out what I would do. Since the original suggestion to me was not going to workout because I was unable to get the API. I needed to come up with something. While going over the project and discussing it with my friend, he suggested Elephants. The girl in me said "Perfect, I absolutely love Elephants!"... wait, I said that out loud!

So I went to work. I had viewed some other files so see what was necessary to include in my contribution. I also needed to view the Elephant facts. Once a basic code was made, I ran it. Not the results I wanted. Thought some more, read some more and discussed a few approaches for different outcomes. Finally figured out that I needed all the the variables to get the results and then I decided that I wanted to only print the "names" of the different elephants. After I achieved the desired results, I pushed the code and sent the pull request.

Well look at that! My contribution was approved and merged. This was a fun refresher to using web API's in C#. I feel like the memory of this process is much more preserved then doing an assignment with a deadline. It is certainly more fun when you can decide what the outcome should be!