Sunday, April 24, 2016

"What is Code?"

I am sick this week, and not too functional, but I did read Paul Ford's 38,000 word article. Slowly becoming more culturally oriented.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/


Update 6/15/2016: Gradually listening to the CodeNewbie podcasts. Heard Paul Ford on episode 82. Enjoyed him. Thanks Saron.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Part time work?


7/12/2016:


Part-Time and Contract Coding Jobs


Monday, April 11, 2016

Finished: Head First Ajax


Saturday, April 9, 2016

Linus Torvalds

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Finished: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML

Yeah, that's right. Published 2006. That was a bad year-- lots of cheerleading for how XHTML was so great that HTML5 would never even be invented. And CSS was so great because we now could do multi-column layouts in it, sort of, if we tried really really hard. Just close your eyes and believe. But the 2006 edition, that's what they have at the public library. Tech from ten years ago. It was actually sort of good to look back, remember the alienating awkwardness of that time, and also to affirm that I do know the contents of at least one textbook. Even if it's an old one.

Praise God for Bootstrap. And HTML5. And come to think of it I guess I missed the painful stage of Javascript altogether too. Something to be grateful for. I may have missed a lot of years. But a lot of that was totally worth missing.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Django Girls



I am alas not studying Django for now, but still like the good vibes coming from Django Girls.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Finished: Head First JavaScript Programming


Finished reading Head First JavaScript Programming. I am very happy about this textbook series! I had my doubts about all the cartoons etc, but it does a very satisfying job of caring about quality of information too. And about genuine understanding by the student. Aimed at smart, curious people who also like cartoons! Yet another reason to love O'Reilly.

(I have some gender irritation about the images in this one... very boy-team-centric, the girls used as endless "others"... Not a very hopeful training for workplace relations. But I'm sure they tried, and will keep trying. I appreciate the effort.)

AND I even felt I was really learning something useful, even though I was only an "airchair" student, not actually at the keyboard while reading. Since my actual keyboard time continues to be painfully limited, this feature is super awesome.

My library carries several other Head First books! Hoorah! Onward.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Next: Build a Wikipedia Viewer

Next Free Code Camp assignment is "Build a Wikipedia Viewer." The model has a form where a user can type a word and have the app return a nicely formatted list of Wikipedia articles.

Why can I not find "APIs for Beginners" anywhere? It's one of those secrets, like how to use GitHub fluently, that everyone already knows... Even my trusty W3Schools (which FFCamp scorns as too babyish a resource) just glosses it over with a little hand-waving (W3Schools JQuery AJAX Intro).

Trying... Maybe I should try going back to Codecademy while I wait for FFCamp to (eventually) backfill the missing lessons.
  • First, Zapier: An Introduction to APIs. "If you are a non-technical person, you should feel right at home with the lesson structure." OK, yes, that was a nice soothing read.
  • Codecademy: YouTube API course - at least this one seems to have an intro module called "How to Use APIs with Javascript" as Part 1, and "Searching for YouTube videos" only as Part 2. "How to Use APIs" serves as a nice interactive quiz on the Zapier article.
    • Zapier explains
So much reading, so little coding! Sigh.


Codecademy How to Use APIs with Javascript: completed.
Out of time for today.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Show the Local Weather - done.

Well, I did it, but it was really hard, and I don't think I really got a grasp on it. I am missing some basic info about how how to use an API. All the info I can find is all about how to construct a request URL. But what do I do with the URL? Info seems minimal or sketchy, compared to all the other tutorial info about there. Frustrating.

But hey, learning to code is all about tolerating frustration, right...?

http://codepen.io/shcolligan/full/PNYZJa/

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Javascript Calculator - done

Well, I finished the Javascript Calculator project. It was the first thing I've actually built (rather than just being an "airchair" programmer.) And it was fun.

But FCCamp has moved the curriculum sequence around again. Argh. My poor little checkbox brain. I guess I should just get used to it.

Still full of immense gratitide for Saron Yitbarek's Codenewbie podcast. Listening to them all, starting from the oldest ones, at night with the android tablet under my pillow.

Monday, February 8, 2016

misc background reading

Published 2004. But for me
still helpful, as I slowly 
catch up on the world..
During the Semester of Silence, and in other random bits of time, I am continuing to gather little bits of background cultural info.

I notice that all the code-newbie girls who get started "late" (after college) are the wives of professional programmers. In other words they have the cultural aspect already in place when they decided to "learn to code."

My severe cultural disorientation of a couple years ago is slowly fading. But it takes time.

I finally began building the first program of any size this week, the Javascript Calculator exercise. I was amazed to discover my brain going right to where it left off as a child in 1979, trying to design the program around BASIC GOTO statements. But I have now gathered enough background cultural knowledge about design decisions, and words like procedural and functional and object oriented, that I am no longer paralyzed by nameless anxiety caused by questions I cannot even articulate.


Monday, February 1, 2016

Someday if I am lucky I will run out of silly homework and need more. Someday.

Someday
Or at least join my kid on
(List at top generated Jan 27 2016 by the good people of DevChix.)

PS 2/8/2016 From a podcast I learn this has a name, apparently...? "Code kata"?

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Second session at WWC East Bay. Not blazing, but making some progress.

Now tackling: freeCodeCamp "Basic Front End Development Projects (100 hours)"
  •    Build a Personal Portfolio Webpage - Complete
  •    Build a Random Quote Machine - Complete
  •    Build a JavaScript Calculator - Incomplete
  •    Build a Pomodoro Clock - Incomplete
Inspiration: CodeNewbie podcast. I am absolutely starving for this sort of cultural orientation. And non-testosterone-soaked atmosphere too. Thank you Saron Itbarek, you are awesome.

Other bits to look at sometime:

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Women Who Code East Bay at NextSpace!

Suddenly I find myself in a fun study group! At a super easy location!

http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-East-Bay/events/227956444/

Floating through the happy chat air:
Back in the saddle at FCC. At least more than zero. (345 Brownie Points, up from 284 in August.) Welcome, January.

Blank semester here.

Well, my life blew up in September. Family etc drama. Other pulls on my soul. So, one semester gone, Sep-Dec 2015, no coding. A little bit of reading books etc, but no hands to the keyboard.


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Feeling Restless

The outside world providing other dramas, distracting from FCCamp.
Also the Ziplines were frustrating, a sudden toss into the deep end of the pool. Plus the frantic hype and chaos of front-end web development reminds me of what I did not inspire me about the Unity game dev course.
And the MIT 6.00 course just started on EdX.

Feeling restless.


Powerful Object-Oriented Programming

Programming Python, 4th Edition
Powerful Object-Oriented Programming
By Mark Lutz
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Final Release Date: December 2010
Pages: 1632
If you've mastered Python's fundamentals, you're ready to start using it to get real work done.Programming Python will show you how, with in-depth tutorials on the language's primary application domains: system administration, GUIs, and the Web. You'll also explore how Python is used in databases, networking, front-end...

Monday, August 24, 2015

FCCamp

What I have done on FCCamp: 284 Brownie Points (mostly Waypoints)

What I have left to do::

5 basejumps
6 bonfires
28 waypoints
10 ziplines

What does that actually mean?

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Free Code Camp progress?

Apparently the little points I am earning at FFCamp are called "Brownie Points." Hm.

Just to fill in all those new blank checkboxes they added "behind" me, I went back to do anything unchecked in my list ("Map"), and found that many took only a few seconds to do. I am now up to 222 points! Woo! (We won't talk about whether that represents any actual progress or not for now :)

Other:
  • Finished reading Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) All the key stuff was in the final chapter. Should I try setting up a Joomla project for practice? Should I focus on Wordpress instead? Or just FCCamp? 
  • Still craving MIT. Tempted by Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python MITx 6.00.1x . Starts Aug 26, 2015. I think it's the same course I took last summer on MIT OpenCourseware, but updated and moved to EdX. So, if it's only a review, maybe not insane to do it simultaneous with FCCamp/javascript? Well...

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Free Code Camp progress bars

Bad news: Jafar Husain's 42-step course in "Functional Programming" was so awfully demotivating I lost momentum after completing about 1/4 of it.

Good news: while I away being demotivated, FCCamp restructured their curriculum again. And Jafar Husain's course vanished.

Bad? news: After the curriculum restructure, I no longer know where I stand on my progress bar. A lot of new tasks have appeared "behind" me, the numbering system has changed again, and I don't know how many total tasks there are from which to calculate my Percent Complete.

May 8 - Aug 18, so three+ months from starting date. The number in the corner of my FCCamp "Portfolio" page now says "183". Out of how many total? Who knows. If I stick with 218, then 84%.

Gotta try and get back in the saddle...

List of over 80 Women in Tech Programs & Events in the Bay Area



Karen Church: A few weeks ago I began a quest to crowdsource a list of women in tech programs and events in the Bay Area and to make the resulting list public for all the benefit. And a couple of days ago I published the resulting list in a Medium article along with details of my quest, my motivations, the crowdsourcing effort I employed, the dataset collected and the analysis I conducted.
Since publishing the article, a couple of people have asked if there is a link to just the resulting list of 80+ events so I figured a separate post with just the final compiled list might be useful. Enjoy!
https://medium.com/@karenchurch/list-of-over-80-women-in-tech-programs-events-in-the-bay-area-5a8d210de878

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at almost three months. At scorepoint 179 (out of about 218, so 82%, if all the points are equal-- which I think they are not -- they get longer/harder toward the end). (For example: Item #184, "Waypoint: Practice Functional Programming", is a Jafar Husain's 42-step course they say will take several hours to complete. Earlier items took only 10-30 minutes each.)

Was scared by the Udacity course at first, but once I got started, I felt capable. Now that I've been in it a while, I am bored. Learning without "doing." I liked the Bonfires which felt more like "work" rather than "lessons." Udacity is way better than Codecademy though. Well built, alive-feeling.

Others:
  • Have read 68% of Kindle Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) Also slightly boring, but a necessary orientation.

#ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign

Another bit of inspiration this week: the #ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign started by Isis Wenger @isisAnchalee. (A fun followup on June's #distractinglysexy )

http://ilooklikeanengineer.net/


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Ada Lovelace, Tim Berners-Lee, Hackerschool Recurse...

Interesting looking organization: Recurse Center (formerly "Hacker School.")

(Sadly, I heard about Recurse in an email today announcing the shutdown of the Ada Initiative.)

Another source of inspiration: just read library book (published 2000, so, old, but Berners-Lee is a UU and a hero of mine) Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web, by Tim Berners-Lee.


Just watched his 2014 TED Talk, and burst into tears at the end when he gently, but clearly, asks the audience to fight for a Magna Carta for the Web. So UU. https://webwewant.org/

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at two months + 2 weeks. Finished "Bonfires" section! Now at scorepoint 171 (out of about 218, so 78%, if all the points are equal-- which I think they are not -- they get longer/harder toward the end). Haven't done any "pair programming" though. It's so hard for me to find time alone to concentrate on learning; let alone find that PLUS find time and space where I can chat out loud with someone over the internet about the assignment.

 Next step: They want me to take a Udacity course in Object Oriented Javascript. Scary, intense Hack Reactor vibe. Ulp. Where is my warm, fluffy hand-holding?

Others:
  • Have read 52% of Kindle Joomla 3 Explained (2nd Edition), by Stephen Burge, from Joomla Press. (Published August 7, 2014. Doesn't cover new Joomla 3.4 release.) 

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Geek Feminism




And also: Yay Python! and Django Girls Tutorial.


Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Free Code Camp progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, now at two months + 1 week. Now at scorepoint 165 (out of about 218, so 75%, if all the points are equal). Getting a little tired of "Bonfires" but definitely learning from the work.

Others:

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Progress bars

Free Code Camp: May 8 start date, almost two months gone. Now at scorepoint 136 (out of about 218, so 62%, if all the points are equal).

Others:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):

Friday, June 26, 2015

Progress Bars

Free Code Camp: Finished sections 1-6. Passing a milestone: Moving from "Waypoints" intro section to "Bonfires" practice section. Section 6 included brief lessons on Chrome DevTools, Regex searches. Now, section 7, Javascript "Basic Algorithm Scripting", and pair programming using Screen Hero.
Other markers: Now at seven weeks post May 8 start date. Now at scorepoint 117 (out of about 218. I counted by hand. So 54%, if all the points were equal).

Others:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):
  • LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Free Code Camp week five

Finished the rather silly Stanford Online "CS101" class.
Freecodecamp then sent me back to Codecademy, bleah.
But I had already finished that course! Free jump ahead!
And escape from Codecademy again! Next task:
"Discover Chrome DevTools" at CodeSchool.com
Oo, I don't know any of that stuff. Finally something new and exciting!

I found a number at FCCamp that seems to be a score: "113". It ups my score when I complete a "Waypoint" or "Challenge" (for example, one for each week of the CS101 course.) It doesn't say how many there are total.

This is their plan. I'm on item #6 "Basic JavaScript" -- the "Discover Chrome DevTools" is step 9 of 10 in that section.

800 Hours of Practice:

  1. Get Set for Free Code Camp - done
  2. Basic HTML5 and CSS - done
  3. Responsive Design with Bootstrap - done
  4. jQuery - done
  5. Computer Science - done
  6. Basic JavaScript
  7. Basic Algorithm Scripting
  8. Object Oriented JavaScript
  9. Intermediate Algorithm Scripting
  10. Functional Programming
  11. Advanced Algorithm Scripting
  12. Front End Development Projects
  13. Full Stack JavaScript
  14. Full Stack JavaScript Projects

800 Hours of  Real World Work Experience:

  1. 100-hour Nonprofit Project
  2. 200-hour Nonprofit Project #1
  3. 200-hour Nonprofit Project #2
  4. 300-hour Nonprofit Project

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Free Code Camp update

  • Completed jQuery at Codecademy
  • Working through six-week "CS101" course at "Stanford Online Lagunita." ("Lagunita is Stanford's instance of the open-source software release of the Open edX platform, which was developed by the joint Harvard/MIT non-profit organization, and which Stanford engineers have been collaborating on since April 2013. Lagunita hosts many of the free, online courses that are taught by Stanford faculty and made available to lifelong learners around the world for self-enrichment. Lagunita also hosts a variety of professional education opportunities in conjunction with many of Stanford University's schools and departments."). Now working on Week 4 of 6. (June 11: finished week 6.)

Saturday, May 30, 2015

My quest for true understanding is doomed to frustration


Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Progress Bars

Free Code Camp: Reached a milestone-- Finished "Waypoints", now entering the "Bonfires" section of their program. Finished brief lessons on Chrome DevTools, Regex searches.  Other markers: start date May 8 + seven weeks, score points 117 (out of ?).

Others:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):
  • LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. 
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Bootstrap hope and joy

OK, this is silly, but I just discovered Bootstrap and it's making me cry with relief. Ever since CSS was announced as our supposed liberation from HTML Table layouts (1996?!), I've been waiting for CSS become usable (or at least better than Tables)... I think this may finally be it! The era (decade?!) where web page creation and I parted ways may finally be over...

Also: Free Code Camp chat member "david" posted the following graphic today. A nice little jiāyoú 加油  :)


And today, I finished Free Code Camp thru Waypoint #13 ( aka Codecademy "Make a Website (Airbnb home page), 3 hours"). Next FCC task: Codecademy jQuery, 3 hrs.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Finished Codecademy Ruby course

When did I start? Looking back over this blog... Sometime between Feb 9 and Feb 27. That means it took me three months of stolen moments to complete the "nine-hour" course. :(

Progress bars:

Newly Started:
Recently Finished:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing):
Totally shelved-- the intro chapters gave me enough of a sense, for now:
  • Nand to Tetris Coursera course (completed most of Week One) and Elements of Computing Systems textbook by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (read through chapter four).
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.: 69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

Friday, May 8, 2015

freecodecamp.com

It takes about 1,600 hours of coding to develop the skills you'll need to get an entry level software engineering job.
Most coding bootcamps try to jam all this into 3 or 4 months of intensive study. Free Code Camp is fully online, and there will always be other people at your skill level that you can pair program with, so you can learn at your own pace. Here are some example coding schedules: 
Time budgeted --- Hours per week --- Weeks to complete
Weekends  --- 10 hours/week  --- 160 weeks (36 months)
Nights and Weekends  --- 20 hours/week  --- 80 weeks (18 months)
Full time  --- 40 hours/week  --- 40 weeks (9 months)
Traditional Bootcamp Pacing  --- 80 hours/week  --- 20 weeks (5 months)
It's hard to not feel discouraged by this info. Three or four years of my current life seems very depressing. And I can't pretend I am even really doing 10 hours/week successfully.

Also I must be amused by the use of the word "Traditional" in "Traditional Bootcamp."

Thanks DevChix for the link to freecodecamp.com though. It looks interesting.

----
PS Reading the chat at freecodecamp led me to this similar site: "The Odin Project". Ruby on Rails. Free. But, clear macho (nerd-macho) theme. And, none of the fun little checkboxes that FreeCodeCamp has :)

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein

Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein.

I finished it!

I'm thinking I like Eric Weinstein, but not really Ruby. Too chaotic.

If I return to Python, will it be as orderly as I remember it as?

Ah well. Python is not next on the list. Linux is. After finishing the silly Codecademy Ruby course. Got up to 87% today.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Three weeks gone.

Well, if Wednesday checkins are the measure, it looks like the sick kid and events killed three weeks. Or four, if you count this Weds too, since almost nothing got done today either.

I did do some of the Nand to Tetris course-- the intro/overview, and the first week. Almost got the first week homework done. Read the textbook up through the third week/chapter. It was helpful/orienting. (But decided I do not have enough hours/week to avail do that course right now, so I do not plan to continue and complete.)

Also a few inches gained on the two Ruby items.

Progress bars:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing) bars:
  • LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux. No progress. (Was doing Nand to Tetris instead.) 
  • Nand to Tetris Coursera course (completed most of Week One) and Elements of Computing Systems textbook by Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (read through chapter four).
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%) 
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9. 
  • Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12. 
    • Note new book, similar, but in Python and by a woman: Hello Web App by Tracy Osborn.
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.: 69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

From NAND to Tetris

Today's work session cancelled by sick kid.

My scattering (multiplying? replacing?) of task bars continues: a friend sent a recommendation for the new NAND to Tetris Coursera course (starts April 11, 2015), and I feel sort of hungry-angry about it. I want this literacy. They claim it's a basic course, no technical background required. Ha. I read the first few pages of the textbook, and it was scary. And I don't think the I have the hours per week that I would need to wrestle with it. (Especially if I keep using the few hours I have to explore new courses rather than finish my "old" ones.)
Toys to supplement Week One:

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Linux

Well, as I continue my nonlinear explorations, I am looking at adding yet another unfinished Progress Bar to my record: LinuxFoundationX: LFS101x.2 Introduction to Linux.

I supposed I should also add the kid book I am reading in odd moments: Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids by Eric Weinstein. It's funner than Codecademy.

Progress bars:
Non progressing (or nonlinearly progressing) bars:
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
  • Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Progress bars

Great gods, it's been a month since the last post. I thought maybe ten days.

Progress bars:
  • Using Drupal, 2nd Edition. Choosing and Configuring Modules to Build Dynamic Websites. By Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Bruno De Bondt. Finished reading, or skimming at least. Need to learn more about web servers, PHP, etc. Back to Michael Hartl.
  • Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 60% complete 
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
  • Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)

Friday, February 27, 2015

nonlinear progress?

Joined the devChix mailing list. Along with Wired magazine and O'Reilly Media's Programming Newsletter, helps give me a sense of culture and context.

Other "progress bars":
  • Using Drupal, 2nd Edition. Choosing and Configuring Modules to Build Dynamic Websites. By Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Bruno De Bondt. p.86 of 456. (19%)
  • Codecademy.com Intro to Ruby nine-hour course. 38% complete 
  • Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger & Matthew McCullough: p 130 of 416. (31%)
  • Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Read through chapter 6 of 9.
  • Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial: completed chapter 2 of 12.
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.:  69% complete. (No progress since Dec 13-- switched focus.)
My latest distraction, sprung from the events of winter break: 

Choosing and Configuring Modules to Build Dynamic Websites


Also, just for fun, with my kid:

Monday, February 9, 2015

Back from winter break

Powerful tools and techniques for collaborative software development

Five weeks of silence on this blog. Five weeks of almost no computer lessons. Completely distracted by a personnel crisis in an organization I am in. Crisis phase is now over but restructuring work continues.

Purchased and began reading Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition by Jon Loeliger, Matthew McCullough. Everyone keeps saying Git is an easy no-brainer but I keep feeling confused and wary. This book is helping a lot. "Don't worry your pretty little head about the details" only goes so far.

I may begin the Ruby sequence on Codecademy because a) I am still distracted enough to need something a little brainless to do and b) I am tired of being given code examples that I am supposed to "understand the gist of" when I don't even know the elementary syntax. Plus, Codecademy is only play so it doesn't require Git.

But, a friend is working on learning Drupal/Open Atrium, causing my attention to wander toward learning more about Drupal... Wander, wander...

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. (POODR)

Been reading Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer, by Sandi Metz. Now on page 70 (of 241) now. So helpful.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl: completed 3.1, 3.2., 3.3, 3.4.3

I really gotta do a basic course in Ruby syntax if I'm going to keep learning good stuff from Ruby teachers. :P


Meanwhile endless advice flows into my mailbox:


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

Finished chapter 2 of Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl.

It's so hard to find time to concentrate uninterrupted, especially time at my computer, with working internet. For example, I can't do it while gulping my dinner in a taqueria. Or when there are chatty people around to whom I must not be too cold or rude.

I can read paper books, even when not at a quiet desk. I have scraps of time while waiting at the kid's orthodontist, eating breakfast, etc. But paper books are expensive.

Just finished this one: Introducing GitHub: A Non-Technical Guide. By Peter Bell, Brent Beer. O'Reilly Media.  Final Release Date: November 2014. It's humiliating to have to start with the "non-technical" one. And to still feel ignorant at the end. But, a little bit less so.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

Finished chapter 1 (of 12). Hard but fun.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl

New baby GitHub account
Getting board/frustrated with the Unity book. (69% complete). Have I gotten what I needed to get from it (ie, some experience messing around in an a object-oriented environment), or should I persevere and finish, since I started? In a fit of restlessness, began the Railstutorial.org book before finishing the Unity one.

(Is it true I don't yet have a GitHub account? Didn't I create one at that Open Source event? Apparently not...) (Oo, Hartl tutorial has me setting up a Cloud9 IDE account too... pretty! At least I know what an IDE is now. Progess since this summer :P   )

Profoundly distracted by the Ferguson protests.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Code School "Try Git"

Completed today. Not super enlightening. Cat is cute tho.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Hour of Code - one year later

Hour of Code approacheth. One year later.

What has changed in one year?

I have completed introductory classes in: HTML/CSS/Javascript; Python (several); Unity Game Engine (63% as of today). I am itching to be done with the Unity course so I can tackle the Michael Hartl Ruby on Rails one.

Object Oriented Programming concepts are no longer totally alien.

I have moved from feeling proud of myself for sticking a toe in the water, to feeling very impatient and frustrated that I still don't really know how to just jump in and swim.

I have joined a lot of new email lists and have a different set of voices flowing across my screen: O'Reilly, Gamasutra, Women Who Code. I got my Hour of Code reminders from GeekMom this year. I learned about new holidays, like Ada Lovelace Day.

I thought about organizing an Hour of Code event at the kid's computer club place this year-- but did not.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Unity with Ryan Henson Creighton: 57%

OK, the code in this chapter did not work.

And I fixed it.

Even though I do not know much about the Unity engine, or UnityScript, I apparently do know how to debug, slowly, methodically: is this part working? Yes? How about this part? No? Debug.Log(), Debug.Log()... And I do know how to muck slowly through incomprehensible script reference manuals describing objects and classes and variables I know nothing about, until I find what I need.

I still don't know why his code didn't work. He said to "tag" something using Unity, and I did, and the Unity interface says it is successfully "tagged", but the script does not see the "tag". Some kind of Unity bug I guess.

I'm sure there are multiple fixes/workarounds. But I found one of them :)

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Re-inspired

Got the idea of looking for a UCBerkeley equivalent of MIT Open Courseware. Found EdX Berkeley. Then... found a course with a list of prerequisites that I actually understood! Maybe there's a "Level Two" for me in the world! Plus it even seems to cover something like the "web stack" topic I was planning to try next.
EdX UC-BerkeleyX Engineering Software as a Service CS169.1x
CS169.1x teaches the fundamentals for engineering long-lasting software using highly-productive Agile techniques to develop Software as a Service (SaaS) using Ruby on Rails. Students will understand the new challenges and opportunities of SaaS versus shrink-wrapped software. They will understand and apply fundamental programming techniques to the design, development, testing, and public cloud deployment of a simple SaaS application. Students will use best-of-breed tools that support modern development techniques including behavior-driven design, user stories, test-driven development, velocity, and pair programming. Students will learn how modern programming language features like metaprogramming and reflection can improve productivity and code maintainability. Prerequisites: Programming proficiency in an object-oriented programming language such as Java, C#, C++, Python, or Ruby is required. We will teach the basics of Ruby at a very accelerated pace that assumes thorough familiarity with OOP inheritance, static/class vs. instance methods and attributes, recursion, hash tables/hash maps, list comprehensions, higher-order functions, lambda expressions. This course is NOT a good first course in programming. Basic Unix command-line skills are helpful. Familiarity with Git, GitHub and Heroku will also be helpful. 6-12 hours/week, Oct 21-Dec 9, 2014. (CS169.2x: Engineering Software as a Service, Part 2, begins Jan 6, 2015.) 
"Profiiciency" is too strong a word, but at least I understand most of what the "prerequisite" words refer to. (I do NOT (yet!) understand what most of the course description words refer to. :P)

Alas the timing is wrong: the course started a few weeks ago (Oct 21), and I haven't finished my Unity course yet. (Currently at 42%)

While looking at the course webpage, I saw a student review that recommended "Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial" before starting the course. I looked it up, found out it is a book available online, read the first few sections, and loved it. So I can do a virtual (by which I mean offline, LOL) version of the course using this book, and now I have something to read over lunch again.

I Googled "Python Django vs Ruby Rails" and decided I am probably more of a Python type. But, no harm in learning a bit of Ruby syntax at this stage.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Frustrated by slowness

Unity book: now 40% done. 

Goaded by WWWCode Newsletter link to Bloc bootcamp website, feeling frustrated by my slow pace of learning. So hard to steal quiet, concentrated time at the computer...

From the WWWCode Newsletter/ Bloc website:
  • Bloc Course Directors Share Their Favorite 10 Pre-Bootcamp Tutorials. The page is still frustratingly hard to read, full of references to things I have not only not mastered, but am not even familiar with. :P
  • Bloc's Programming Bootcamp Comparison - "Navigating the Coding Ecosystem: Compare Price, Length, and Workload of Learn-to-Code Courses." Includes a description of coding student types, by category:
    • THE HOBBYIST
      “I’m new to coding. I want to learn how to build my own app, on my own time.”
      • holding an irregular schedule
      • unsure if coding is the right fit for you
      • learning to code just as a hobby
      TRY A SELF PACED, OR LOW INTENSITY COURSE, like Codecademy. Maybe 5-10 hours/week, or less.

    • THE PROFESSIONAL
      “I work in a tech industry. I want to learn how to code like a professional.”
      • have a full time job
      • a busy life, with not too much free time (kids, family)
      • or a familiarity with coding, but no experience
      TRY A PART TIME, MID INTENSITY COURSE, like Udacity. 20 hours/week, or less.

    • THE JOB SEEKER
      “I’m making a complete career change. I want to be a professional developer.”
      • looking to make a complete career change
      • ready to make learning to code your full-time job
      • frustrated that past efforts learning to code failed
      TRY A FULL TIME, INTENSIVE COURSE. A bootcamp, like Bloc. 40-90 hours/week, over 12 weeks or so.

    • [We at Bloc]... calculated how much time it would take to reach a minimum of 500 hours of experience — a decent chunk of the 10,000 hours required to master a skill...
I guess I should be glad to see "my type" on the list at all. But I feel frustrated that it's under "hobbyist"... even though that is entirely accurate.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Mozilla Webmaker

Mozilla Webmaker Web Literacy Map
https://webmaker.org/en-US/literacy
Got an email today from "MozFest." Am chagrined to realize I don't understand the vocabulary well enough to read it and understand what they are talking about. But after poking around on the links for a while, I think I may add Mozilla Webmaker to my list of possible next steps on my curriculum of exploration. (Next steps meaning after I finish my current "unit" on game design, embodied by the Unity textbook.) They have a Web Literacy Map that includes topics like "Understanding the Internet Stack" -- seems like some of the same areas of knowledge that "coder boot camps" (Hackbright, etc) cover, and which I am still missing.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Unity with Ryan: 26%

Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton.

One hour work session today. Did pages "23%" through "26%" (Does it make sense to note page numbers in Kindle? p 137 of 533, ch 4 of  14...). Built a bouncy ball thing. Giggled.

(I'll admit it: I bought this book because of the shoot-y noise on the cover.)

Saturday, Nov 8: 
Worked to 31%. Still fun. And still good for the other reason I chose Unity for my current "class" -- provides practice on object-oriented proramming and Javascript, in context of a larger project or system.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Game Design

Maybe a little off track for "coding", but since last weekend I've been really enjoying learning a bit about the world of "game design."
  • MIT Open Courseware CMS.608 / CMS.864 "Game Design" with Phillip B. Tan - am listening to lectures despite poor sound quality that reduces the contexts in which I can successfully follow. Currently on lecture 9 of 33. Would be fun to do all the related reading and exercises too... but no time.
    • Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber - reading this because it is listed as a text for MIT OCW CMS 608. Tedious textbooky style, but interesting content.
      • It's also mentioned in 4 Must-Have Books for Learning Game Designers by Jake Huhn
      • Update, 11/22/2014: Finished reading it (though not doing the exercises.) Also subscribed to Gamasutra email list for ongoing taste of game industry talk.
    • MIT Open Courseware related courses
    • MIT Game Lab 
    • I am severely tempted by, but don't think I have time for, edX MITx: 11.126x Introduction to Game Design, happening right now (Oct 22-Dec 3), again with Philip Tan... sigh. The archived lectures are all I can do, I think.
  • Utopian Entrepreneur by Brenda Laurel (MIT Press) - I love this woman. She's my new bisexual superhero.
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton - my current "textbook", on the theory that it's useful to see things that can be done with code. Trying to actually do the exercises in this one, "get my hands dirty," instead of only reading. I love the humor of the author. And there is something inherently fun about Unity 3D.
  • Twitter is emailing me interesting-looking things to "Follow", more than I can record here.
  • Coursera "Video Games and Learning" Oct 3 - Nov 13, 2014, from U. of Wisconsin

Saturday, October 25, 2014

The Queerness and Games Conference

Stepped off my beaten path today and spent a few hours at The Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon2014) at UC Berkeley. Fun! Was very inspired by keynote speaker Brenda Laurel.

In the morning I went back and attended a game design workshop led by Chelsea Howe-- very fun.

Decided to go ahead and try again to add Twitter to my life. (Last time I looked into it was 2009.)
  • http://www.ted.com/speakers/brenda_laurel
  • http://tauzero.com/Brenda_Laurel/
  • http://www.qgcon.com/
  • https://twitter.com/QGCon
  • https://github.com/LiMina/adjective-animal/blob/master/qgcon-notes.txt

Friday, October 24, 2014

Finished Codecademy "Javascript"



Finished the Codecademy Javascript course.

One month to finish "10 hour" course. Sigh. Hard to find the scraps of time.

Progress: having now finished yet another "intro to programming" course, I do feel like the initial "culture shock"/new job/steep learning curve pains of being flooded by new vocabulary and concepts is past. I still lack practice and experience, but I am now at least oriented. I have survived this far :)

I think my next project will be to play with the Unity game engine for a while, using Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide by Ryan Henson Creighton. (I've now read 25% of the book on Kindle, but am still severely lacking in "getting my hands dirty" experience, due to lack of time available to actually sit at a machine and concentrate for longer than a few minutes at once.)

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Gender wave

A small wave of articles and conversations on the topic of sexism in computing came through this week. I think it started with the burst of facebook disgust at Mr. Nadella's remarks on women asking for raises at the Grace Hopper conference...
Interesting...

Monday, October 13, 2014

Inching update

Inching onward -- update:
Next Kindle book? Need something to read over lunch...
Or maybe I should just try to start with Al Sweigart's Making Games with Python and Pygame...

Thursday, October 9, 2014

DOS extenders, X3J11 C standard committee, and 3-D terrain display...

Feeling a bit inspired by his list of accomplishments:

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=24798972


Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Inching along

Inching onward:
  • Codecademy Javascript: 44% complete
  • MIT textbook (Introduction to Computation and Programming by John Guttag) on Kindle: 72% read
  • MIT CS6.00 lecture series (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming by Prof. John Guttag) : 18 of 25 lectures listened to
Next ambition:
  • Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide by Ryan Henson Creighton, followed by 
  • Creating eLearning Games with Unity by David Horachek. 
  • But these (or any other projects involving actually building something) will require actual working-at-a-computer time, not just reading-during-lunch time...

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Unity again

Women Who Code - Unity Game Engine class again. See entry of Aug 28.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Finished Codecademy "Make An Interactive Website"

An introductory overview of using Javascript and JQuery code to add "interactivity" (drop-down menus, etc) to a website. Not deep, but another bit of orientation...

 Codecademy

Thursday, September 4, 2014

CyberAces

From an email thread.
Free SANS training (This is from their actual courses)  via CyberAces Online available as of September 1.http://www.cyberaces.org/direct link to the tutorials: https://tutorials.cyberaces.org/tutorials
...
FYI, my husband's in this industry, and SANS training is considered the top certs for network and information security.  If your kids are interested in security, this is where to start.
... 
Funny....my husband is too that is why he told me to let everyone know about it.  :)  It is a good field if you are interested in computer security.  Sounds like a great opportunity.  Hope it helps someone...:)
So many possible directions...

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Finished Codecademy HTML & CSS

Finished Codecademy HTML & CSS today, September 2. (Finished Codecademy Python on July 30.) Next: Codecademy Javascript (with maybe a brief stop at Codecademy Make an Interactive Website for orientation. I've lost my mental block about CSS, but I still feel so out of date...)

Codecademy

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