From home nerd to pro geek
Why did I decide to study Software Engineering?
February 28, 2021
The beginning of my journey… As so many professionals in various computer fields before me, I began as a nerd at home. From getting my first Atari and playing combat and pong against my sister as small children to building my first computer as a young teen. From there, I was hooked. I have learned several programming languages through the years since then, and now I am jumping into web development.
March 28, 2021
So today I turned in my first basic webpage project for my software development class through Flatiron. It is a simple design using html, css, and Javascript. As I had previous experience with basic html, that part wasn’t too difficult. CSS wasn’t TOO terrible either, it was just a matter of getting used to styling separately from my html file (old-school style). Javascript is the section we are currently focusing on in class, so that was the most challenging. The most effective way to implement the “sections” of data or blocks shown was a “card-style” of static code in the Javascript being directly displayed on the webpage. Take a look, enjoy, and don’t laugh too hard…I’m still learning. 😜
May 2, 2021
Phase 1 down, and another project complete! As we have continued further down the rabbit hole, we’ve dug deeper into Javascript. We are now looking at data hosted on API’s (Application Programming Interface), and traversing the data to get what we need for our websites using fetch. Requirements for our project were to create a front-end application that accessed data from an API, some form of DOM manipulation, and some form of user interactivity. We were given a list of potential API’s to look at, and it just so happened that a video game I play was on that list. No-brainer, right? I was second-guessing my choice at first just due to the sheer amount of data they had. It seemed overwhelming. But, I stuck to my guns, and rolled with the punches. I was able to find my own character from the game, so that it what I used…of course. The webpage looks very basic, but it’s more than meets the eye when you’re working with API data. Without further ado…have a look.
(https://cml-phase1-project.netlify.app/)
June 13, 2021
Phase 2 complete. 1 more down, several to go. This phase was all about learning REACT. REACT is a Javascript library for application development. Initially, with just the basics, it feels as though you are simply typing in cheat codes for your HTML and Javascript, but becomes much more complex as the lessons pile on. Our project for this section of class was not only to develop a front-end application, but also a back-end API using JSON data to communicate with as well. So I ended up making basically a little swap shop for fishing equipment. It’s very basic…rods, reels, and bait…the front-end ever-so-innocently displays a small list fishing gear, and as you select a piece, you remove it from “the shop.” You can also “donate” items, which will then be displayed. I’m sure it looks pretty bland to the naked eye, but the items are also stored and displayed by the back-end application. So, while it may not look impressive, sometimes it’s what you CAN’T see that that is the most fun…like magic! 😎 Here’s your big chance to check out my handiwork...hope you enjoy.
(https://cml-phase2-project.netlify.app/)
August 15, 2021
September 19, 2021
Another month in and another phase down. For phase 4 we covered Ruby on Rails to develop a back-end hosting our data from a PostgreSQL database. Of course we also needed a front-end to display everything, and for that, we stuck with our old friend REACT. After learning base Ruby in the previous section, the Rails framework add-on wasn’t too hard. The biggest challenge was actually getting it hosted properly online. If you care to see it in action, here’s the link to my handy dandy pet shop page.
(https://cml-phase4-frontend.netlify.app/)
October 15, 2021
I’ve just submitted my final project. Phase 5 was strictly based on this project encompassing everything we learned in class. So for it, I built out a PostgresQL back-end database using Ruby on Rails. This includes validations and serializers on my 3 tables, which were 2 many-to-many relationship tables and a join table. My front-end was again built using REACT. I played a little more with styling this time around using styled-components for REACT to make it look a little cleaner to the viewer/user. Our instructors suggest we continue using these projects to practice and build on our skills. I plan on going back in to this project to add in authorization and try building out some custom hooks to clean up the code. Keep an eye out for future revisions. Here is the link…hope you enjoy.
(https://cml-phase5-frontend.netlify.app/) — original