#developer bootcamp

And just as I expected, I completely forgot to post on this blog after the first week. I really want to be better at maintaining this thing weekly so I’ll start with a re-cap of what we’ve spent the past few weeks doing!

More HTML/ CSS , Client-Side JavaScript, J-Query, Object Oriented Programming, Callbacks, etc.

The sink-or-swim feeling of the program has definitely kicked in. Concepts like OOP and Callbacks are very complex and multi-facted and there’s just no way that I could wrap my head around those concepts in a single lecture. It’s become important for me to research and study outside the classroom. The Eloquent Javascript book continues to be a powerful ally in my journey.  

As far as the day-to-day goes: it’s become ingrained in my life. Waking up at 6AM is no longer novel. I’m in bed by 10PM and asleep by 11 most nights. My body wakes up like clockwork at 2AM and at 6AM every single night... I don’t quite understand it, but hey it works. 

 I have also been able to get into the swing of balancing health with the immersive nature of this program. Every morning I wake up with just enough time for some morning yoga which helps me feel more limber and active before a full day of sitting at a computer. I also track my calories via myfitnesspal so that I know what I’m putting into my body and can better manage my intake of nutrients. Another thing I’ve begun doing is getting off muni early and walking for 30 minutes back to my house - I wan’t to eventually work my way up to an hour of walking every day.

The hardest part of the first month has been completely re-adjusting my life from what used to be the norm for me: sleeping in until noon and staying out until 3AM. I’ve hardly gone out since the bootcamp started and my liver and wallet certainly appreciate it. 

Well. We did it. We survived our first week.

On day one, we were told to savor each day and make the most out of it because “the next 24 weeks were going to fly by in the blink of an eye”. On my first day I couldn’t fathom how six months would feel fast- but now I get it.

The amount of information  I’ve learned in one week is more than what I was able to teach myself in one year of self-instruction. It’s pretty crazy the amount of practical, applicable coding skills they can teach us in one week.

Last week, I was terrified of github and the command line. This week, it’s getting close to second nature. 

This week we learned about: - Navigating using the command line - Using github for version control and submitting code via the terminal - Cloning, forking, and workflows for best practice regarding github - HTML - CSS and Bootstrap Html was quite straightforward. I had plenty of experience and didn’t feel like I struggled. The *concept* of CSS was simple enough, but it’s challenging trying to make specific things happen when it comes to CSS formatting because you never know how moving one element will affect the elements around it. 

Today, we spent all day learning about Bootstrap - an open source collection of tools meant to simplify CSS development. Bootstrap presented its own unique set of challenges, but it certainly made it more intuitive to create and style beautiful looking pages.

I feel tired - even though I got a good amount of sleep every night this week. I can’t stress enough how staggering the sheer AMOUNT of information we learned was. My brain feels dense with new knowledge. It’s tough - but ultimately fun and rewarding.