Weeknotes - 04 Makers PreCourse

End of Pre Course Klaxon !!!

It's the last week of the part-time course and time to kick back before the real work starts.

Pair Programming

This week involved trying to fit in as much pairing as possible. I met up remotely with my cohort buddy, James, to pair on FizzBuzz¹ with TDD, then did the exact same thing with my mentor Ayelisha² the next day.
Pairing remotely is great for verbalising ideas and practising articulate communication. James and I decided our goal up front and out loud, and split up our sessions. We set up a collaborative repo on GitHub and used it to share code. We finished with a mini-retro gave ourselves a pat on the back & observed we could to better at refactoring as we go.

Ping-pong pairing in a nutshell:

1. Write a test
2. Watch it fail
3. Make it pass
4. Refactor
5. Repeat!

• Each time you write a failing test you switch navigator/driver roles
• When you start repeating code that's an indicator you can probably refactor something

Office Hours With Top Celeb Ali Spittel³

I was lucky enough to bag a 15 min meeting with blogger, educator, developer Ali Spittel. She offered personal advice on succeeding at bootcamp, and how to get the most from my portfolio website.

💡 Ali has a whole blog post on how to build an excellent portfolio³ btw

Tips for my portfolio

Ali suggested I start by making my site more readable and fully responsive. When selecting which side-projects to big-up, it's best to focus on building things outside of the box that are memorable - and link to both the code repo and the project itself.

I'm interested in accessibility (or a11y for short), so Ali recommended to use lighthouse testing like a checklist and to read Lindsey Kopacz's blog⁴.

Making the Most of Makers⁵

1. Go to office hours with the coaches, and make use of 1to1 time
2. Attending tech events and meet-ups is a great way to meet people for life beyond bootcamp
3. It will be a rollercoaster - that's normal!

Misc.

• Big thanks to Ali Spittel³ for her advice and time 🙏
• Had a lot of fun learning JavaScript with Lauren⁸ 🦄
• Slack was alive with reports of flies this week - looking forward to meeting them
• Excited that qui⁶ is delivering a beginner coding workshop at his office!
• I did a BeeWalk⁷ in the rain with some friends, the clover was blooming and we saw lots of bumblebees - but only 3 species 🐝

Weeknotes Notes

1. FizzBuzz | wiki
2. Ayelisha Amoah | DEV
3. Ali Spittel Building a Kickass Portfolio | Article | DEV
4. Lindsey Kopacz A11y with Lindsey | website
5. Makers | website
6. Chris James | website | @quii
7. BeeWalk | website
8. Lauren Zammit | LinkedIn

_{Edit: This post was edited to include Lauren Zammit's profile - May 2019}