#sqlitemare

I've been getting through most of this week without very much sleep. I'm really feeling it now, the fatigue is making my head and eyes hurt as a result.

We started off the day with study hall. My partner and I looked over N+1, then got started on our Polls project. Fortunately, neither of us had really any a-Polls-ing feelings about how to begin.

SQL week so far seems to be pairs of repetition. First and second day, raw SQL, SQL with Ruby included. Day three and four, ActiveRecord, extra ActiveRecord built up.

First, we drew out some diagrams and guidelines for how our tables would be designed, as well as mapping out which foreign keys would point to where for our associations. I know having a reference helped me a lot, and other than a few bumps when attempting migrations and Postgres DB startup, things went pretty smoothly. We also had some fun with the data we seeded, but hit a roadblock once we reached the point where we had to make sure users couldn't vote in the same poll twice. Misinterpretation of very vague instructions led us to pondering for at least an hour (including TA help) over how we were supposed to check if a user already voted in a poll when our sibling_responses method was meant to filter out ourself????

As it turned out though, we were supposed to check BEFORE we added it to the database - at which point, the response ID would be nil, but the user_id wouldn't be, so we could check in that way and get the desired results! Throughout the day, I also learned a few shortcuts, because my partner is a shortcut-wiki, and seemed to be on the up and up on all sorts of details previous partners often don't notice.

We did make it to the end, but didn't get to the bonus. Our day ended early, because at 5, the previous cohort was graduating, and they were going to showcase their work to prospective employers. They brought in lots of pizza (not for us) and even offered beer - I didn't take any, because who is to say I won't get drunk and try to stab myself with the bottle, thinking it's a... sp-beer???

There were some cool stuff, but I didn't get to see most of it because we had to leave before the employers arrived. The one that seemed to have gotten a lot of notice was a game where you had to draw Pokemon. It involved a picture on the left, and you had to try to match it as closely as possible on the right. If I had my wacom tablet, I would've without a doubt, aced it. Everyone in the room would've stood up and clapped, I would be given the key to the city, and Google and Facebook would do a joint employment plan for me so I could draw Bulbasaur for them and get cheered right out of the room.

Seeing that people made Javascript games helped me understand what the mysterious weeks 10-12 were about. Week 8-9 is when we have to do our Capstone, which is done in Javascript, and requires us to create a clone. Week 10-12, we design our own project, and showcase that and get the new cohort to check it out and be amazed. It's hard to believe that we'll be expected to design these games in a little less than two months along with a clone. I doubt I could design my way out of a pizza box at this point.

So that resulted in us leaving a little early, and tonight, we prepare by practicing the practice assesment, and getting ready to work solo tomorrow. I caught a cohort mate and Leen on the train home, and she told us tomorrow, the TAs will be very busy because many people will have lots of questions, so I guess I'll have to hope some pals near me will be willing to help. I actually look forward to solo day! But who knows, I might find it boring, but.. double down on insisting it's triple the fun! Maybe I'll even go to the gym after and do some s-quads. I haven't worked out since A/A started. :-(