by jason
on December 3, 2017
Been making really good progress. I’ve averaged 14 hours per week last month and finished all the FCC Back End API projects. I had to learn Node.js and MongoDb and while it was challenging, I did move through them pretty quick.
Check them out here:
There’s still five web app projects to do before I can claim the Back End certificate. I plan to work through them but it may be slow going since I will be dedicating my time to a team project. I joined Chingu Cohorts and got placed on a team. It will help me grow as a developer and I’ll learn how to work in a team. I’m looking forward to the experience. Our project is due January 20, 2018 so it’s going to be a busy two months for me. Can’t wait!
by jason
on September 22, 2017
Man it’s been awhile! With the exception of a short gap, I have been coding pretty steadily. In the last two weeks I’ve put my self on a 7 hour sleep schedule, which allows me to get about 2 hours of coding most days and around an 1 hour on exercise days. It seems to be a good balance and should allow me to be ready to job hunt around March 2018 like I was planning.
We will see how it goes, right now I am just focusing on making sure I code at least a little everyday. It is difficult for me because I am an “all in” kind of guy. If I feel I cannot dedicate or focus as much as I would like, I usually just skip it. That has resulted in a lot of lost time so I am trying to change that.
I finished the Game of Life project. It was challenging but I was able to figure it out, and I was actually shocked with how fast I was able to do it once I was actually working on it. I am now on the last React project that Free Code Camp has. It is an old school dungeon crawler and I had to side track to learn HTML canvas so I can generate the maps.
I did try something different with this project though. Before, I would just build out functions and components as I worked through the project and add comments after I was done. This time, I thought about the different components and elements I would need and what they would be made up of. I am also trying out Trello to help keep track of them and my progress. Trying to prepare myself to work as part of a team and not solo like I have been. I am probably going to look for some open source projects that are noob friendly after this project, so have to start thinking differently.
Well, back to the grind now.
by jason
on August 4, 2017
Man! So it’s been a little more than two months since I did any coding. I had to finish up on the house because it was time to return to Georgia. My leave time was up and I had to get back to work. I also neglected my fitness there for a bit so my wife and I decided to get back on track with that. So a full time job and working out six days a week did not leave a lot of time for coding.
I am backing off the workouts a bit to make time for coding. The time I have to code is less than my ideal but my time frame for switching to web development as a career has been extended so it’s not that big of a deal. I am also taking my kids through FCC. So far they have been liking it and breezing through it.
I thought I would be rusty and take awhile to ramp back up, but I was able to pick up where I left off and even moved past an issue I was having when I stopped. I am in the middle of the “Build a Recipe Box” project on FCC. I was struggling with incorporating React-Bootstrap into my project. I think I worked out the kinks though and should be able to complete this project soon.
