A Developing Developer

Currently re-reading:

Bitwise: A Life in Code

I read this book before I started my coding bootcamp at Coding Dojo. I'd been studying algorithms on AppAcademy's online Bootcamp Prep program. I could code the algorithm to FizzBuzz, but I had no idea how complex algorithms could get.

The computer science component of software engineering was completely foreign to me. I'd known basic HTML and CSS, but concepts of data structures such as arrays, binary search trees, singly-linked lists, stacks, and queues were completey outside of my realm of knowledge.

Re-reading this book after going through a coding bootcamp has given me a completely different perspective. In chapter one, the author, David Auerbach, talks about assembly language:

"When I took a compiler class in college, the infrastructure of the computer opened up to me. There was no longer a miracle in between my code and its execution. I could see the whole picture, finally, and it was beautiful."

After finshing the coding bootcamp, I feel like I've uncovered a small portion of the whole picture. I know I have much to learn, but attending a coding bootcamp has given me the ability to see the inner-workings of the web and how all of it's component parts fit together.

Bitwise: A Life in Code

May 22, 2020

Java is the last language we learned to use at Coding Dojo. It's quite opinionated. You gotta tell it explicitly what's what. Are you a string? An integer? An array? Then there are access modifiers. Public? Private? Just look at this line of code. So verbose!

public static void main (String[] args){}

May 15, 2020

Patrick

Paul

Coding can be very taxing on the mind and body. The bean bag is where we go to rejuvenate our souls. Sometimes things get lost in the bean bag. I've found a lighter once. Paul lost his parking token to the parking garage. He was fined $42 for a lost token! Ouch!

Kevin

Coffee

My amazing girlfriend bought me a Cuisinart coffee maker from Costco. In addition to some phenomenal coffee from Peet's, she also got me whole beans from Stumptown so I could make use of this Cuisinart burr which belonged to my late grandfather. The great thing is it matches perfectly with the new coffee maker. I'm going to need all the coffee for late-night coding sessions. Particularly when we get to Java.

February 23, 2020

Spring Training

It's February so the days are slowly getting longer, flowers are beginning to bloom, and baseball is back! The 300 pound elephant in the room--nay--the abomination that is the Houston Astro's cheating scandal has stained the game for many people, myself included. One person I talked to said he was no longer interested in baseball. It is particularly awful for players whose careers were shaped by the Astro's sign-stealing scheme. But one thing about this game is that cheating has and always will be part of the game.

February 22, 2020

Developer Week

It was Developer Week at the Oakland Convention Center the other week. For most of us, it was our first foray into the world of tech conferences with lots of swag and people talking about their products. My good buddy Paul and I sat in on this talk. Good times. And LOTS of free stuff!

February 22, 2020

We've been working with Django for the past week. It's a Python-based web framework that allows you to get a server up and running. The first few assignments utilizing Django had us build a simple clock, a random word generator, and a small game where a Ninja goes around and collects gold from a farm, a cave, a house and a casino. Sometimes the ninja loses gold from the casino.

February 21, 2020

Python

This week we started working with Python. Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose language created by Guido van Rossum in 1991. Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability. It definitely uses a significant amount of whitespace.

So far I am enjoying it.

Beautiful is better than ugly
Explicit is better than implicit
Simple is better than complex
Complex is better than complicated
Readability Counts

February 3, 2020

Foster City

I'm from a small suburb of San Francisco along the peninsula called Foster City. The name comes from T. Jack Foster, a developer and real-estate magnate who owned much of the area on the east edge of San Mateo. This is a photo of the San Mateo Bridge looking east toward Hayward.

January 21, 2020

Lake Tahoe

One of the perks of living in the Bay Area is it's proximity to world-class ski and snowboarding resorts. Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places where I like to spend time snowboarding and enjoying the great outdoors. I recently purchased a Lib Tech snowboard and have been taking the Bay Area Ski Bus to NorthStar, Kirkwood and Heavenly.

January 21, 2020

Mariners Point Golf Complex

One of my favorite things in life is playing golf. The Mariners Point Golf Complex in Foster City is situated on the Bay with gorgeous views of the San Mateo Bridge, the San Francisco city skyline, and airplanes making their descent into SFO. The training center features a 9-hole short course, a 64-stall driving range with Toptracer technology (powered by TopGolf!), practice greens and bunkers.

January 21, 2020