Start Over Coder

It’s the last episode! I’m sharing the biggest lessons I wish I knew when I first started learning to code, and also what’s still to come on the Start Over Coder journey.

1. Set a clear goal from the beginning

2. Build actual projects

3. Work with other people from the beginning

4. Teach someone else what you know

5. What to learn? Keep it basic and go deep

Despite this being my “parting advice,” I’m not stopping coding or actually going anywhere! Though the podcast is coming to an end, my main goals (check out episodes two and four to hear about them) are still very much in play.

You can listen to the episode from about 16:15 to hear what’s coming up in the immediate future, and keep in touch for future updates by:

This episode was originally published 7 July, 2018.

In this episode I’m answering listener questions…ask me anything! The questions I answer in this episode are:

This episode was originally published 26 June, 2018.

This week I’m sharing 2 more awesome resources for learning to code.

Chingu

Chingu is a learning community that gets you working on a dev team no matter what skill level you’re at. How it works:

I’m excited to participate in Chingu because I learned so much during a similar group project last year. Of course your success depends entirely on the work you put into it and a bit of luck in getting committed teammates, but in my opinion the benefits far outweigh the risks, so I think it’s worth going for!

To learn more about what it’s like to go through Chingu, check out their Medium publication or YouTube channel.

uMatrix

uMatrix is a browser extension (available on Chrome, Firefox, and Opera) that can add privacy to your browser and teach you about the modern web at the same time. Its purpose is to give you control about what you want to allow/block—things like cookies, 3rd party tracking, 3rd party anything, iframes, external scripts, etc.

For a thorough description and to see uMatrix in action, check out this YouTube walk-through video. You can also take a look at some examples of uMatrix rulesets:

This episode was originally published 13 June, 2018.

In this episode I’m wrapping up a few loose ends: the final report on my first from-scratch Node application, and a course review of Harvard’s CS50: Intro to Computer Science.

Node/Express App Part 3

To catch up from where we left off…

As I kept working on the project, I learned quite a bit about working with dates in programming (hint: not a straightforward endeavor!), and had a frustrating attempt at deploying on Amazon Web Services.

But eventually I was able to successfully deploy the app using Heroku, and overall by the time all was said and done I had a working application that I actually still use to this day!

CS50 - Intro To Computer Science Course Review

CS50 is the introductory computer science course offered at Harvard University, and it’s available for anyone around the world to take for free on the EdX learning platform. It covers a lot of basic topics to build an understanding of how computers, networks, and applications work. My favorite aspects of the course were:

If you’re interested in taking the class, prepare yourself for a lot of work and time if you really want to make the most of it!

This episode was originally published 5 June, 2018.

Since setting a goal at the beginning of the year, I’ve made 3 attempts to get my first paid developer work. These are the big takeaways and things I’ve learned:

This episode was originally published 29 May, 2018.

This week I sat in on a status meeting with a developer team in my company. Pretty cool to see what it’s actually like to work as a developer (well, get a glimpse at least!)!

I was really glad to have had access to this experience without much effort—it was just a matter of reaching out to a VP in my company and asking for an informational. Now that I know this is possible, I’ll be doing it a lot more!

This episode was originally published 22 May, 2018.

The command line is a basic necessity for any developer and I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with it since I started learning how to code. Not sure what I’m talking about? Think back to any movie/tv show with a hacker hacking away into that black computer screen, typing green text. They are most likely using the command line (for good or evil, depending on the context!).

But more to the point, the command line is how you can have direct access to your machine to carry out any system-level actions, from moving files around to executing programs, to communicating with other computers over a network. As a developer there are many use cases for working in the command line:

Here are some of my favorite tips about getting comfortable working in the command line:

This episode was originally published 14 May, 2018.

I’m back from last week’s conference! How did I do with the goals I set out before going? Pretty well! Plus gained some tips for future conferences.

This episode was originally published 8 May, 2018.

I’m heading to a coding conference in a few days! And unlike some past events I’ve been to, this time I’m doing a bit of preparatory thinking/planning to help me make the most out of attending. I’ve set 3 goals I’d like to accomplish during the two-day conference.

How To Go To Conferences (Financially)

Since Financial Independence is a big goal in my life (not to mention a topic of this podcast), I also wanted to share some tips/ideas about how to attend conferences without attacking the wallet too much:

This episode was originally published 1 May, 2018.

I was getting set to record a second ‘stumbling block’ episode when I went back to the podcast episodes I recorded last year when I first had these difficulties, and instead was reminded of the things I found helpful at that time to get out of the funk and keep making progress.

The first was remembering not to beat myself up over losing momentum. Learning a new skillset is a huge undertaking and it’s bound to have times of both high and low momentum. There’s absolutely no value in reprimanding myself for slowing down for a few weeks!

The second benefit was remembering what led to the stumbling block last year…turns out some of the same life events are happening now, so is it really a surprise that I might have a similar response?

The third and biggest benefit helped plan a way forward from here. Since I can refer back to what I did last year (and I know how it worked out for me), I have a good sense of what might help me move forward this time around.

So overall, having documented the obstacles I ran into last year really helped me get to a more optimistic outlook this time around. And as a result, I think I’ve moved past it faster!

This episode was originally published 24 April, 2018.