Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Completed: "Exact Change" exercise


Completed the FreeCodeCamp's Advanced Algorithm Scripting "Exact Change" task. Took me less than three hours this time. (If you don't count the fact that my "finished" code very obviously could do with a major refactoring, tons of duplicated code in there, needs to be a loop instead of nine cut-n-pastes...) Still felt like way too long, but at least it wasn't three months.

Did it while attending a local coding meetup, my fourth time there, hopefully a new weekly habit.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Completed: 101 episodes of CodeNewbie

As of Episode 101, I have now listened to all the back episodes of the CodeNewbie podcast by Saron Yitbarek. (I started listening seven months ago.) It's wonderful to have something code-y to listen to while I wash the dishes, and to get the feeling of a sort of virtual conference/convention when I cannot attend any actual ones. Lots of interesting voices talking, transmitting connection and culture.

I plan to go back to the first episode and listen again, this time ideally following up on all the links in the Show Notes too.

I may also be ready to try adding the Bike Shed podcast to my dishwashing regimen. Good background chatter for me to absorb, especially since unlike so many "code newbies" I am not married to a programmer or working (in a non-tech role) alongside developers in the office. The content on Bike Shed is over my head, but not as much as it used to be.

(It's also, like CodeNewbie, talking a lot about Ruby on Rails. I am studying mostly Javascript as I follow the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, and I suspect I may be a Python person at heart. But at my level mostly it's the concepts and culture which are key and transferable, even in the syntax and some of the specific tools and words are not.)

Note to myself, repeated from last January: If I have time maybe I should try some of these too.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Completed: FCCamp "Use the Twitch.tv JSON API"

Still very weak on the front end prettiness. But calling it done for now.

Did that really only take me a month? It seemed longer. The previous one took four months. (In scraps of spare time.) Am I getting back on track???

Marissa Mayer book



Interesting.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Disrupted book



Well. That was interesting. And frightening.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Another image: code instructor at St Joseph

Hello Ladies! Do any of you have teaching experience (or inclinations) and want to share your skills with women in need? Are you interested in supporting gender equality in the tech field and eliminating economic class barriers for entry level jobs? I've been working for a great organization called Codetalk that offers a FREE 15 week intensive coding course for the women who need it most. We teach front end development, professional development and meditation techniques for general wellness. We're starting our 6th session in Sept and have recently been funded by Snapchat. Hours would be 8:30am - 1pm M-F. If you are interested you can check out this link and apply: https://www.smartrecruiters.com/STJOSEPHCENTER/93447609-codetalk-instructor

St. Joseph Center
Codetalk Instructor
Santa Monica, CAPart-time

Company Description

Background

Since 1976, St. Joseph Center has been meeting the needs of low-income and homeless individuals and families in Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista, and surrounding communities.  The Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization that assists people without regard for religious affiliation or lack thereof through comprehensive case management and integrated social service programs.  The Center enjoys broad-based community support as well as a sponsored relationship with its founders, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.  St. Joseph Center serves approximately 6,000 individuals annually.

Brief Description of Principal Activities

Multifaceted intervention, prevention, and education services are carried out at four sites on the Westside of Los Angeles.  St. Joseph Center’s integrated programs provide clients with concentrated and coordinated access to services according to the nature of their needs.

Intervention Services

Homeless Service Center

  • Chronic Homeless Initiatives
  • Bread and Roses Café
  • Housing Services
  • Senior Services
  • Monetary Advisory Program
  • Veterans Representative Payee Program
  • Prevention and Education Services


Food Pantry

  • Culinary Training Program
  • Early Learning Center
  • Youth Resource Team
Job Description

Collaborate and work with second instructor to oversee all on-site classroom instruction.

Help maintain all program curriculum, assignments, projects, homework, cheat sheets, assessments, and other materials & resources for class. This includes documenting and archiving lessons and lesson plans, creating new assignments and lessons as needed, managing all student resources in Google Drive and the Student Portal, and managing all other online class resources.

Update instructor and student logs daily with progress and student updates, keeping the gradebook updated and tracking daily attendance & tardiness, tracking all student progress and assessment scores, and producing midterm progress reports and final reports, and periodically meeting with students individually.

Provide feedback on all student projects and assignments. Work individually with students when necessary. Be available during breaks and before class for student support and additional assistance.

Be consistent with classroom policies, create contracts with student, and enforce policies, including student meetings, warning letters, and consistent communication with SJC case workers.

Able to work with a diverse range of students and learning abilities. Concerned with helping students understand the material and sensitive to the barriers students may be going through that affect progress. Passionate about the cause, aligned with the vision of the program.

Have proven competency and be able to teach the following subject areas:


  • HTML
  • CSS
  • jQuery & Introductory JavaScript
  • GitHub & Basic Command Line
  • WordPress
  • Migrating and Transferring Sites
  • Familiarity with Agile/SCRUM Methodology
  • Mac OS


Hours: 25 hours/week
Monday - Friday (9am - 1pm) Instruction & Lab = 20 hours
Monday - Friday (8am - 9am) Planning/Curriculum Prep/Student Logs = 5 hours

Qualifications

Have proven competency and be able to teach the following subject areas:
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • jQuery & Introductory JavaScript
  • GitHub & Basic Command Line
  • WordPress
  • Migrating and Transferring Sites
  • Familiarity with Agile/SCRUM Methodology
  • Mac OS

Additional Information
Status: Part Time/ Non-Exempt (25 hours/week)

Salary: DOE

Employment with St. Joseph Center is contingent on completion of satisfactory background check.


Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Completed: FCCamp "Build a Wikipedia Viewer"

Done!!! Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration: the "finished" app is not very beautiful. BUT IT WORKS. And the assignment was to re-create the "functionality", not the pretty design.

After fours months of frustration -- partly due to technical problems, partly due to my outside life preventing me getting any coding hours -- it's a bit of a shock to sit down and just finish it! Clickity click! As if this FreeCodeCamp this was just a normal class/job and not a Nemesis!

I do have good hope that the "outside life" problem that was solved during the past four months is a true change, and now I will be able to make much more progress...

Next FCCamp task: another API exercise, this time for Twitch.tv (something I am not a user of.)

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Inspiring

Not a very common sort of job ad. But inspiring that it exists.

FULL-STACK DEVELOPER

Sexual Health Innovations (SHI) is offering a unique opportunity to use your technical skills to change the future of sexual health and wellbeing.
SHI is a woman-founded and women-led nonprofit startup that builds technology to advance sexual health and wellbeing in the United States. We are hiring a highly-motivated full-stack web developer to work on Callisto, our largest program and main initiative. Callisto is a third-party sexual assault reporting system designed to provide a more empowering reporting experience for college sexual assault survivors and to facilitate the identification of repeat assailants.
You have:
  • Familiarity with and experience working in an MVC framework (like Django or Rails)
  • Deep empathy for our users, especially with regards to their privacy
  • Sensitivity to confidential information, data integrity, and security
  • A practical, product-focused approach to web development
  • Ability to work independently and proactively
  • Resourcefulness and the ability to prioritize
  • Strong communication skills and an understanding of the challenges and joys of remote work
  • A demonstrated drive to learn new things and continually develop your skills
We will give you:
  • A hands-on education in web accessibility and application security
  • Trust and support to make technical decisions and decide on direction
  • Experience working on and maintaining open source projects
  • A professional development budget and guidance to help your career grow as our organization grows
  • Flexible work hours and location
  • Full benefits package
  • Paid vacation, holidays, and sick leave
  • $80k-$90k/yr salary, commensurate with experience
  • Purposeful and fulfilling work toward a noble mission
SHI is a small, close-knit team that values transparency and honest communication. You will be working closely with the Chief Technology Officer on every part of the Callisto stack. Right now, that includes Heroku, Postgres, Python, Django, Bootstrap, and Javascript. Our priorities as a technical organization are security, accessibility, user experience, and engineering best practices, such as automated testing and continuous integration. If you’re not sure if you should apply or not, you should!
Location: SHI has offices in San Francisco and New York City. In this position, you will have the opportunity to work remotely or from our offices. This is a full-time position. Travel expected once a year.
How to Apply:
Please submit the following documents to jobs@sexualhealthinnovations.org with the subject line “Full Stack Developer”:
  • Resume
  • Cover Letter
  • Any relevant projects in your portfolio that you can share
Developers of color are especially encouraged to apply. Trans and non-binary developers are especially encouraged to apply. Queer developers are especially encouraged to apply. Developers with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply. Developers on their 2nd or 3rd career are especially encouraged to apply. Your perspective is invaluable to our work.


SHI is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy to comply with all federal, state and local equal opportunity and nondiscrimination laws. Our policy is to afford equal opportunity in all aspects of employment to all persons, including applicants, volunteers and independent contractors, without unlawfully discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, ethnicity, religion, religious creed (including religious dress and grooming), sex (including pregnancy, perceived pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, enrollment in a public assistance program, physical or mental disabilities, legally protected medical condition or information (including genetic information), family care or medical leave status, military caregiver status, veteran status, political affiliation, or any other protected class category covered by local, state or federal law. Sexual Health Innovations is committed to providing an inclusive environment for all employees, volunteers, board member, contractors, clients, and any other person that interacts with the organization.
Consistent with the law, SHI also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled applicants and employees; for pregnant employees who request an accommodation, with the advice of their health care providers, for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; for employees who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking; and for applicants and employees based on their religious beliefs and practices.

Traits

From Zed Shaw's twitter feed today: what traits ought to be sought in a senior developer.


Monday, July 11, 2016

Stumbling blocks on the way to Intermediate

Or, "Why I Can't Build a Wikipedia Viewer".
FreeCodeCamp assignment: Build a CodePen.io app that is functionally similar to this:https://codepen.io/FreeCodeCamp/full/wGqEga/.
Reasons I was/am not ready to succeed at this:
  1. No training in Ajax --> no ability to recognize, understand and resolve CORS error messages, or even google them successfully. 
  2. MediaWiki API documentation extremely hard to understand, inconsistent, etc. 
  3. But, even after I finally have the data: Weak coding fluency. Lack of practice. This is not really a roadblock-- I can write the logic, just very slowly.
  4. Weak CSS skills. This is a bigger block than #3 -- I lack any practice at doing layouts in CSS, and also I have an irritable mental block along the lines of, I am not a graphic designer, I don't like CSS anyway, who cares about boring front end stuff, etc. This needs to be burned through and cured. Even if "front end" does not become my passion, I need to be competent. And get over myself.
  5. Anger at FCCamp for making this one too hard.
The project landed on my desk March 16! It's been unhurdled for four months now!

Remedies:
  1. After hours of research and study on Ajax (XHR, CORS, JSONP, etc), I think I have the basics of comprehension in place now. Check.
  2. After hours of reading and struggle, I decided I had learned as much as I was going to learn and gave myself permission to just use someone else's (a FFCamp "staff" person's) code to get the data out of Wikipedia. Clearly FFCamp had intended this to be an exercise in writing code to display API data, not in mastering one particular labyrinthine API. That's where I am as of today: working on just getting the data out, without putting further effort into 100% understanding what all the little MediaWiki API commands actually mean.
  3. Practice and study. FCCamp, I guess? Too bad no Jed Shaw text for front end.
  4. Practice and study. Need to find more assignments and push more of this into my brain. Subscribed myself to CSS Tricks weekly newsletter to make sure it keeps flashing in front of my eyes. Here's a test page to remind myself what "competent" might look like. And a random list of lessons and exercises to try.
  5. Wait for others to complain and FCCamp to resolve. Looking at the assigned model today: yep, it looks like they did make it easier: no more little thumbnail photos, and no more live responses as you type. Good. They are supposed to be training me, not hazing me.

Coding Journey overview: beginning third summer session...

Year Zero

May 2013: My kid wins a prize, and we visit Google campus. The vibe is attractive. Lots of happy grown-up gifted kids.

October 2013: Hour of Code. Cheerleading YouTube videos featuring president Obama etc. Somehow I take the message seriously.

Year One

July 2014: While kid is busy in summer program (twelve half days), I complete an introduction to programming in python on MIT Open Courseware. (The EdX version did not yet exist.)

Year Two

May 2015: Started FreeCodeCamp.

Fall 2015: "Blank Semester Here." Social and family structures, unhappy with my increasing mental independence, go into extreme fight back mode.

Spring 2016: Back in the saddle. Somewhat. But a new hurdle: transitioning from "Beginner" to "Low Intermediate", and FreeCodeCamp suddenly much less helpful. "Build a Wikipedia Viewer" project becomes a mental and emotional roadblock. (Also, to build "intermediate" projects I really to put in some solid hours, and my schedule has not allowed. However, the gradual cleaning up of the Fall 2015 mess may be leaving some new open spaces.)

Year Three

Summer 2016: The "12 half days" of kid-in-camp begins today. What will I be able to get done this year?

Friday, July 8, 2016

Getting a Coding Job For Dummies, by Nikhil Abraham

More culture/orientation material. Surprisingly helpful, despite the annoying title. Thank you, public library, for buying some new computer-related books.

Slowly, slowly, becoming less disoriented, clueless and "behind"...
  • Part I: Getting a Job in Coding 
    •  Chapter 1: Seeing the Big Picture 
    •  Chapter 2: Exploring Coding Career Paths 
    •  Chapter 3: Working as a Coder 
    •  Chapter 4: Understanding Key Coding Concepts 
  • Part II: Technologies Used When Coding 
    •  Chapter 5: Creating a Website 
    •  Chapter 6: Programming with Ruby and Python 
    •  Chapter 7: Creating Mobile Apps 
    •  Chapter 8: Analyzing Big Data 
  • Part III: Getting Your Coding Education 
    •  Chapter 9: Coding on Your Own 
    •  Chapter 10: Going to Boot Camp
    •  Chapter 11: Exploring Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees
    •  Chapter 12: Training on the Job 
  • Part IV: Launching Your Career Path 
    • Chapter 13: Building Your Portfolio Site 
    • Chapter 14: Networking for Opportunities 
    • Chapter 15: Interviewing and Becoming a Star
  • Part V: The Part of Tens 
    • Chapter 16: Ten Interview Questions Decoded 
    • Chapter 17: Ten Job Search Strategies
    • Chapter 18: Ten Coding Myths 
    • Chapter 19: Ten Coding Job Websites 

Friday, June 24, 2016

And then there's that scary violence thing

Success, fear, courage, support, questions. Things landing on my desk this week:
  • "Thinking about Hillary: A Plea for Reason" by Michael Arnovitz, posted by a Facebook friend via DailyKos. Also on Medium. "...the one thing that seems to most negatively and consistently affect public perception of Hillary is any attempt by her to seek power. Once she actually has that power her polls go up again. But whenever she asks for it her numbers drop like a manhole cover."
  • "She responds brilliantly, he regrets it." Another from a facebook friend, this one about a woman rebutting a sexual harasser online. Sadly, despite the gleeful title, it's clear he does not actually regret it. He blames her instead.
  • "Feeling Sad About Tragedy". My young daughter's role model, youtube math goddess Vi Hart, posting about the massacre in Orlando, and on trying to navigate the dangers of being a visible, successful woman on the internet.
  •  Kathy Sierra's 2014 Wired article (reposted to Systers listserv), "Trouble at the KoolAid Point" on harassment of successful women, and on widespread tech community support for that harassment. Hit close to home. Recent memories, though from a non-tech context. Really shook me.
Does success require navigating situations like these?

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Read: Women in Tech by Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack

Well, that was an earful of rapid-fire advice. A fun read-- except for the bit about how women with kids cannot get tech jobs. That was not too encouraging.

Maybe I will read it again in a year or two.

(Amazing how quickly the book moved from Kickstarter to my local public library. Yay libraries. And Kickstarter.)

One small possible retort to the with-kids issue:

http://www.mothercoders.org/


Wednesday, June 15, 2016

HBO Silicon Valley

Just binge-watched a DVD of "Silicon Valley", season one. Does that count as educational? From my corner of the woods, maybe it does.


Wednesday, June 1, 2016

AJAX rant

OK, so it's been 2.5 months since I made any forward progress on the FreeCodeCamp site.

Partly that's been because of my difficult background/domestic situation, which took a swerve in March. There is hope for a new era in July.

But also it's because of an incomprehensible (to me, based on FCCamp training to date) error: "XMLHttpRequest cannot load ... No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource."

I've spent the last couple of months googling and reading in my scraps of space time. And feeling really (irrationally) angry about being thrown suddenly into the deep end. Being expected to suddenly be able to read the Wikipedia API developer docs as if I had the background to understand. Let alone understand an error like that.  AJAX, JSONP, CORS... The only beginner's intro I found anywhere was buried in a single chapter in an O'Reilly Head First book (was it jQuery? HTML5? I can't remember. But it wasn't AJAX), and that was only an intro.

I finally found FFCampers discussing the problem here and here via Google, but the conversation was above my head. Annoyingly the discussion voices range from the successful-but-confused to the smugly-superior. No one seems to place any value on actually understanding, or helping someone else actually understand.

2.5 months later, I think I may have finally gained enough background info be able to read and understand the learn.jQuery.com AJAX tutorial and give the "Wikipedia Reader" project another try. But I remain very cranky.

----------------

Found another grumpy FCCamper: "I have asked on Glitter, checked dozens of solutions including JSONP plugins, tried code that worked from other Freecodecampers on line, tried numerous Javascript, Ajax, JQuery, JSONP approaches, etc. I have spent more effort on overcoming CORS than on the rest of this curriculum combined." FCCamp replied with a cheery 'here, just use this code, it works,' but no explanation of the concepts involved.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Finished: Head First HTML5 Programming

 Didn't memorize every word. But, a useful overview. (When will my "just getting oriented" period be over? I don't know. But I do feel I am making progress.)


Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Women Who Code meeting

Hands on keyboard today for the first time in a month.

A month feeling deep, irrational anger at Free Code Camp for dumping the "Wikipedia Viewer" assignment on me without adequate training.

After the meeting: a nice WWC member "Sara A" sent me a friendly email recommending the Eloquent Javascript book. So sweet. Amazing how a little human gesture can encourage and motivate me. Even though her solution has not got much to do with my actual immediate technical problem, it helped a lot with what I guess is my technical loneliness problem. None of my current friends is interested in my little coding hobby.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Finished: Head First jQuery


Saturday, April 30, 2016


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.)
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