How I’ve Found Projects that Make a Difference

People say that we can change the world with our programming skills. Sometimes that’s said in a really cliché way, but I believe it to be true. All bootcamp graduates want a software engineering job, and it’s important to keep coding so that we improve our skills as we job search. To be honest, I’ve never liked personal coding projects. I wonder, “Who will ever use this?” and find them to be a waste of time. For that reason, I’ve always preferred projects that will truly change the world around us. …

Explaining the need for git, how to develop on a team using branches, and when to merge vs rebase

Git can be tricky for new developers. Someone who has never touched code can look at the very basic commands of “git pull origin main” or “git commit” and see only technical jargon. More complex issues can present more daunting challenges. For example, developers may have trouble navigating git branches or deciphering merge conflicts.

Git is one of the most powerful tools developers have at their disposal. A proper knowledge of git can save a developer hours of time on a…

Since graduating from Flatiron School in June, I have received the advice here and there to host a website to show off my coding work. I worked on a portfolio site for a couple of months on the side, but I was never happy with the work. Finally, one day I sat down, determined to get something up, and hosted a portfolio site. The entire process, from start to finish, took less than a day.

Here are some lessons that I have learned from the process that I would love to share with any new bootcamp grads.

Use an html template

I was very…

Learning to learn as you build

This week was my first week of internship experience at the company I recently joined. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience and been reassured every step of the way that making this career change was the correct decision.

I’m coming into this position working with a framework and language with which I have no previous exposure. Previously I have coded in Ruby, Python, and Javascript. I have worked with databases, web API’s, MVC frameworks, and SPA’s. I have never, however, done a deep dive into mobile web development, Dart, or Flutter.

This first week was…

Two Months In

I don’t particularly like personal projects. I hate to make something that I don’t think will ever be used. It feels like wasted time and effort.

For this reason, one of the greatest joys in coding over the past two months have been open source contributions. Open source software is software that is available to the public. Anyone can see the code and make a contribution. Usually, these contributions are not paid. Rather, developers contribute to these projects purely because they believe in the cause and want to make the world a better place.

For the past…

The Beginning of My New Tech Journey

Coming out of a coding bootcamp, you’re met with a host of languages, technologies, and software terms that seem overwhelming. It’s truly amazing to see how far I’ve grown already. I’ve studied serverless hosting options, functional programming, Python/Flask, and other options. My next journey is to learn Angular, a very popular frontend Javascript (well, Typescript, actually) framework.

The simplest building block in Angular is a component, which is broken up into three files. This will rub against some the mindset of React users, because React components are made up of only one file…

How a part time job has breathed new life into my job search

Two months ago I was pretty depressed about the prospects of my job search. I had graduated from Flatiron School in June and declared my official job search in August. It wasn’t more than two weeks after my Flatiron graduation that I had already made it to the second round of an interview process. But after that second week, there was absolute silence. No interviews, little coding on my part, and much anxiety about the future.

I’m not depressed about the job search. I still struggle with…

This week I studied mailers and how they can be set up in the Ruby on Rails ecosystem. The examples below are the fruits of my study and not completely original to me.

Mailers in rails require at least three components: a mailer inheriting from ApplicationMailer, mailer views, and mailer integration in the desired controller.

Mailer

The mailer will handle all of the logic required for the specific mailer actions. You can have different mailers for different tasks. In Rails, the mailer model you create will inherit from the ApplicationMailer class, which will provide a host of helpful methods.

class UserMailer…