Start Over Coder

Verdict on CSS Grid…it is awesome! This episode is about what I learned after digging in to the syntax and how you can learn it as well.

CSS Grid is a new display method that is part of the native CSS3 syntax, and is supported in the majority of modern web browsers. The primary advantage of using grid is that you can create a web page layout by placing your content anywhere you like on a grid that you define yourself. No more floats, clears, or adapting to someone else’s grid system—just build what you need and it works. Using CSS grid also make is incredibly simple to make layouts responsive with not very much code at all.

Below is a list of the CSS Grid resources I’ve found to be the most helpful as I learned.

This episode was originally published 2 February, 2018.

Whether you’re actively looking for a job or not, you should be recruitment ready! I learned that the hard way this week. This episode is about what I wish I’d done ahead of time.

While this might seem like obvious advice, I wish I had taken it a lot earlier! These things have a way of not being prioritized if you’re not actively looking for a job. Why? Well it’s hard! How do you write about programming experience when you don’t have any? What on earth can you write about that will make someone want to hire you? For these reasons and more, I never quite got around to preparing these things with dev opportunities in mind.

AND THEN…randomly out of the blue I was introduced to the hiring manager at a company I would love to work for, and they are searching for a junior developer! We had a great conversation that made me even more excited about the opportunity to work there. And what was the first thing she asked for? A relevant CV!

So I spent the weekend getting this together—not ideal on a short deadline, without time to finesse it and get others’ feedback. This was my approach.

This episode was originally published 30 January, 2018.

Pair programming is a productive way to write code with other people, and often used as an interview tool as well. I’ve been incorporating pairing into my study plan recently, and here’s what I learned!

What is pair programming? It’s two people writing code together, and sharing one computer to do it. One person is the driver: their hands are on the keyboard and they are talking through the code they write as they write it. The other person is the navigator: the navigator takes a ‘big picture’ approach and reviews the code as it’s being written, stopping to ask questions or offer guidance based on what the driver writes.

During the pair programming session, you would periodically switch so that each person sits in both roles several times. The main idea is that with two heads working together, the code will be better than if just one person was working alone.

Here are the biggest benefits and lessons I’ve found so far in my pair programming experiences:

And if you don’t live in a busy area or can’t get yourself to a place where other people are up for pairing, don’t discount the option of finding a pair programming partner online. My experience was great—I’ll include some links to open communities where you can look for a pairing partner in the list below.

This episode was originally published 23 January, 2018.

Working with data is one of the most important aspects of development. This week I got an intro to relational databases, and here’s what I learned.

As we all know, a database is where we store data…what makes it relational is the method we use to store it: information is stored in tables, and then we relate those tables to each other by referencing unique id numbers from one table to the next. To interact with the data, we use a relational database management system (RDBMS) like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, etc.

Another option for storing data is to use a non-relational database like MongoDB or Neo4j which takes a less rigid approach to how and where data can be stored. These are also sometimes called NoSQL (not only SQL) databases and they provide flexibility when the data you’re working with vary a lot in structure and content. However when the information is uniform, relational databases can be very efficient because there is not a lot of repetition, and you can easily access exactly the information you need with SQL, when you need it.

With an RDBMS like MySQL, you can write queries to do everything from basic CRUD commands (create - read - update - delete/destroy) to refining searches and aggregating information. Using these queries and commands not only allows you to determine what information is displayed in your application, but it can also help with marketing decision, business development, advertising and much more.

One correction—when I gave the Instagram example, I said that you would have a table for users, and then a table for “that user’s photos” and so on. I meant to say you would have a table for ALL photos—it would not be a table for each user. You then link a user id to the photos table to show which user that photo belongs to. Sorry I misspoke!

This episode was originally published 16 January, 2018.

They say every professional coder should have a portfolio available for potential clients and employers to review. Here’s a low-maintenance, inexpensive (or free!) way to do it.

The simplest and least expensive way to host a website is to create a static website (I talked all about these in episode 31). But hard-coding all of the pages and your entire file structure is tedious and not a good use of time, especially if you expect the amount of content to grow over time (like with a blog, for instance).

Static site generators allow you to set up a template for your site one time…after that’s done, you only need to think about adding new content going forward. You write the content, and the site generator will process everything into a bundle of HTML pages for you. If you don’t want to write any HTML or CSS you don’t even really have to…there are many, many ready-made templates out there so all you need to do is add content, if you want. Easy!

You’ll need to basics to work with a static site generator:

Here are some options for getting started with static site generators:

No matter which one you choose, be sure to take the time to look through some theme examples to see the capabilities…some generators have more functionality & more flexibility than others.

Happy coding!

This episode was originally published 9 January, 2018.

It’s time to revisit my learning plan for learning to code! With the start of a new year and career uncertainty ahead, I’m setting some goals to make sure this Start Over Coder expedition stays on track.

For the record & prosperity (!) I’m going to:

This episode was originally published 2 January, 2018.

A whole year of learning to code, whew! In this episode I reflect on some of the bigger lessons that will carry into the new year: Code. With Others. And set goals! These are the keys to success.

This episode was originally published 26 December, 2017.

This week I got rejected from a coding program that could have been a great way to jump into a new career. Bah humbug : (

While I put a lot of effort into researching and then applying for the program, turns out it’s just not in the cards for the near future. So now it’s about resetting, making some plans, and figuring out where to go from here.

This episode was originally published 22 December, 2017.

This week I realized I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about Node.js, so back to the basics.

This episode was originally published 19 December, 2017.

The reading-to-coding ratio is important to be aware of when learning to code…it’s important they don’t get out of balance. When I notice I’m not writing enough code, here are some things I try.

This episode was originally published 13 December, 2017.