Hi, itās me again. Pamela. Iām going to talk about the experience I had of coding my Sinatra app compare to my last app. A fair warning to you: This blog read through will be a bumpy ride for you considering Iām functioning on extreme lack of sleep. Therefore bear with me, please.Ā The last project I coded with ruby was a CLI project that you can read about here.
Interestingly enough for me, I noticed I had a harder time with the code required in that project and I had a much more enjoyable and easier time with this Sinatra project. Remember that last sentence you read? Prepare yourself for being confused with this one coming up. This Sinatra project was hellish! It drown me in Imposter Syndrome. Contradicting, isnāt?
Imposter Syndrome unwelcomingly slipped in after coding the functionality of the code. I just had to use CSS/HTML to make it look presentable. For which isnāt a problem for me. CSS/HTML and graphic designing are my best friends. So smooth sailing? No. Thatās when the imposter syndrome kicked in. I felt like a fraud coder,Ā I thought I got my code to work by luck. I thought if I was a ārealā coder, I would have handed my project sooner than later.Ā This felt like depression but for code. Coder depression.Ā
Writing this down is making me realize something. I was thrilled about how I got my code to function exactly how I imagine it to. That bliss slipped away when I wasnāt able to complete it when I wanted to. My expectations truly ruin my confidence within myself as a coder.Ā
No confidence == Imposter SyndromeĀ
I read somewhere once thatās itās okay to feel Imposter Syndrome because everyone gets it. Seasoned/professional coders do too. But itās not okay. Not for me at least because I know I wonāt know everything and thatās okay but to feel as though I canāt code or ever be good. Is not okay with me. So I will take thorough steps to prevent myself from slipping for my next and future projects.Ā
What I learn from this experience:
Reach out more to other coders, especially my teacher.Ā
Keep my code neat!
Commit! Commit! Commit! Git is my friend. Stop forgetting it.Ā
Comment more in my code.
Wireframe everything out and not halfway.Ā Ā
Do a Rspec test.Ā
Ā I now strongly believe any method that keeps my code organize will keep my thoughts from leading astray to other ideas and most importantly will keep me from spending too much time on it.Ā
Ā This blog post wasnāt technical but the next one would be! I felt as though compared to my last project, this one mentality beat me down. So I needed to share this, to remind myself and in case you may have felt this too.Ā
P.SĀ
Funnily enough, time is my enemy and the Sinatra app I created is a Tasked Harry Potter theme app. You can view my code here: I go in detail about it and the code inside in my next post.Ā
Hereās a super long masterpost of my favorite coding and design related resources! Iām still experimenting with making banners so I hope itās okay haha.
coding and learning to code
codeacademy - an amazing starting point to learn just about any coding language
w3schools - this site was honestly really intimidating at first but itās got information for just about everything web design coding related, as well as tutorials, examples, and live previews for you to experiment with.
css-tricks - as the name suggests, it has lots of neat tricks to experiment with, and itās not limited to just css either!
codrops - one of my absolute favorite places to go for more complex tutorials and inspiration for more experimental/unique effects.Ā
stackoverflow - this site is basically where people submit coding questions and the online community helps answer them. Itās a great resource and has the answer every single time Iām stumped on something
theme docs - seriously I canāt stress enough how useful this is. Please use this to your advantage!!Ā
CSS viewer - an extension that allows you to see the CSS used when you hover over something
@theme-hunter - an amazing tumblr blog full of resources and inspiration. Base code tag is very useful if youāre unsure how to start making themes.
These Flexbox GuidesĀ - Flexbox was super scary to me at first but itās so useful! Please consider learning how to use it it makes planning layouts and responsive designs so much easier!
AccessibilityĀ
w3Ā - this is the accessibility section of w3, which lists all the guidelines to being accessible and explains why itās necessary
colorsafe - test color combinations to make sure they are accessible. This is especially helpful to make sure your text is visible to everyone if you arenāt going to do the usual black text on white background.
Colors
colourloversĀ - collection of beautiful user submitted color schemes
Palettab - a chrome extension to discover color schemes
Fonts
dafont - huge collection of custom fonts
Google Fonts - super easy resource to put custom fonts into your themes!Ā
whatfont - an extension that reveals what fonts are used on a page
Icons
font awesome - I think just about everyone knows this one, but thereās so many icons!!
linearicons - beautiful icons if you want to for for a more simple/minimalist route. Free version doesnāt have nearly as many icons, though.
flaticon - way more icons than font awesome and so many different styles! You can download the icons as svg, png, eps, or psd! (honestly I donāt see svgās used enough on here theyāre so great)
Inspiration
behanceĀ - Ā super big collection of not only web design inspiration, but lots of custom fonts as well! Iāve gotten some of my favorite fonts from here.
dribbbleĀ - I recently started looking here for inspiration and I love it! I found this has more web design inspiration than behance does, which is more design in general. Dribbble has graphic design things too though.
awwwardsĀ - my favorite place to find web design inspiration. The designs here are actual sites you can visit which I really like.Ā
I may add more to this at some point, but thatās all I can think of for now. I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you know some that werenāt on here too!
Hi, my name is Pamela. Iām aĀ software engineering student. Welcome to my unfinished site! šš¾
By the way, fair warning! ā ļøIf you wander into my site be prepared for unfinished pages or link that doesnāt take you into a journey. In short terms, Iām still coding my site and searching for another host. Also, this is just an entry of my experience doing this project. Itās not a technical post. Those posts will come soon.
Now letās talk about my first Project with a programming language called Ruby...
In week 8, I had to submit my first project for my course at Flatiron School.Ā Ā
The Project:Ā 'build a Ruby gem that provides a Command Line Interface (CLI) to an external data sourceā
What is Ruby?
What is Nokogri?
What exactly is my project?
What random method saved me?
What is Ruby?
Ruby is a programming language that isnāt too complicated like other languages to learn.Ā My friend Google will tell you more: click
What is Nokogri?
Nokogri is a ruby gem. A powerful and popular one that partnered with open-ri which allows you toĀ parse, search and modifying HTML/XML documents.Ā
What exactly is my project?
My target was Pottermore because I decided to make a sorting hat quiz for a terminal. For which Iām sorta proud of. Proud of in the sense that it works but under the hood, my code could deem a mess by a professional. For which I will soon find out. Iām submitting my project today. Wish me luck.
Did you? Okay, thank you!Ā
What made decide to do my project was for one I didnāt want to do anything personally boring. Scraping my site is boring. Plus my site isnāt ready to be scrapped. I wanted to do something super interactive and appealing to the eye of a non-coder. Answer to that is a game or Quiz. A quiz is typically a game. So bingo! Plus, I believe Harry Potter was subconsciously brewing in my mind due to my cohort teacher being an obvious fan of it.Ā
Initially, I thought Iāll just scrape the sorting hat quiz and give the users their result. Easy Peasy!
Not Easy Peasy! I already did the sorting quiz on Pottermore. Iām a Ravenclaw. There are too many steps to take the quiz, plus the quiz is random. That nearly made me abandon the project but Iām not a fan of giving up once I have my mind set on to something. I found this site: click.Ā Itās where I got myĀ questions, answers, and results for my quiz.Ā I viewed the page source and saw that they had each question set with data of all houses with certain points.Ā
So I did something similar with ruby and a ruby gem called tty-prompt.Ā Ā
After that, I started to scrap from Pottermore to provide the user information from the site of only the house that they got as a result of the quiz. User is also provided information of the founder of the house and further information about them. I also provided their stats from the quiz.
What random method saved me?
A method that saved me while coding was the zip method. I needed to merge two arrays into a hash. Thatās exactly what zip does.Ā
Well, the first part. It merges the two array like so:Ā
This blog post is messy and I apologize. I want my thought process to fluidly flow unfiltered and not write as if Iām going to hand it to a literature professor. Plus, I just finished my project and I feel mentally exhausted. I may re-edit this entry this weekend!
Living Up To Your Potential by Jodie Landon, Honor Society President
Perfection is a goal we should strive for, although we may never achieve it. It is an ideal we cannot realize, a destination we can never reach - yet all the more compelling because of its unattainable nature. Perfection fuels our accomplishments. It sits upon our horizon; we move forward, yet it recedes as we approach.
Perhaps the lifelong struggle begins in infancy, when one baby is content to settle for her thumb, while another gropes for the brightly colored mobile just out of reach.
But as that striving child matures, she discovers that she canāt be all things to all people. If she manages to please Mother by blazing a trail in the corporate world, then how can she fulfill Fatherās dream of seeing her as a shaper of public policy, stamping the family name upon historic legislation? Besides, what if she wants to be a ballerina?
So what if you would rather lie on the grass - and look for shapes in the clouds? Thatās what retirementās for. For now, you have to get into college, then grad school. Pause for a single moment and someone else may take the lead. Fun is a luxury you cannot afford.
Is there any way out? Should you admit that youāre not all that superior to the ānormā? Will the admission of a single mistake start an inevitable slide into poverty and disgrace? Do you often feel like you are playing a part and hiding your true self? Are you constantly asking yourself rhetorical questions? And why are you dating the Captain of the football team - because you like him, or because heās who he is and youāre who you are and others donāt care to question the equation?
So remember: There can only be one valedictorian, but there is no limit to the number of people who can try to be valedictorian and fail. So whether you are up on that podium on graduation day, or sitting way in the back making fun of me, always do your very best - never mind the terrible, terrible toll it may take on your spirit.
amandla
stormborns
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
gamechangershow
