Month: July 2019

Day 7: It’s a surprise…

I even remember this.

I’m a tad TIRED. I did manage to get some of the user interaction page done, although I have no clue how I’m going to add the dropdowns for the quantity and pdf/printout choice. Actually, I do have a clue, as I scoured through Bootstrap documentation until I found something relevant–I just now have to figure out how to incorporate and size these in my chart of patterns.

I beat my head against a wall (and so did our instructor) trying to determine how to get images to show up on a page. Come to find out, my idea of adding three of them to the HTML in different sizes, and then using CSS to pick the right size per media query wasn’t quite right. I had to do a div container with an id in HTML, and then add the correct-size pictures to the media queries in CSS, using url(“…/img/example.jpg”) for each size. I wish I could say it was easy, but for the life of us, we could NOT get images on the page. My instructor figured it out…I was using url(“img/example.jpg”)! He’d used the same thing, but he’d had the <style> section in his HTML example to illustrate, so img/ vs. …/img worked for him. I had to change ALL my pages. This set me back quite a bit, along with needing to change the pages for the correct code for submit/reset buttons AND fixing my CSS, which mysteriously had an epic FAIL after all my changes and fixes…AHHH!!!

This entire day has been the Whac-a-Mole game.

I have only two more days to finish. No pressure…

Day 6: The Big Project

…so far, so good.

I managed to spend some time this weekend on our first class project–so far have three pages of the website completed! It’s looking pretty good, except I’m wondering if I should be resizing the images for media queries by width and height in the HTML or try to resize them in my external CSS sheet. Initially, I did it by swapping out pictures for the same pictures in a smaller size, and then adding code in CSS to display the pictures, depending on the media query; however, it’s looking a bit sloppy, code-wise.

I’m DREADING the “user-interaction” page. That’s going to be my patterns-for-purchase page (all two of them). I have NO CLUE how I’m going to create that page. There is a Bootstrap template for a price page and an order page, so I’m hoping I can make use of those and modify them. I’m also supposed to be thinking up an extra-credit page…AAAHH!!!

Day 5: Birth of a Site

I’m happy to say I’ve survived the first week of Coding Bootcamp! As my mother would have said, it was an ugly business, but clean living prevailed!

I’m also happy to report that our instructor approved the proposal for my project website. This is going to be our first major project. We have to create a multi-page website that’s functional (or as functional as it can be without JavaScript), correctly coded, correctly formatted, unique, impressive, and checked into Git with meaningful notes–all due by next Thursday. Oh, and this project will determine if we can continue on with the Code Academy or be booted back to our original jobs…not that there is any pressure…

Needless to say, my project website is going to be about knitting…and crocheting…and anything yarn-related. I’m thinking I’d like the main gist of the site to be a blog, where I can entertain people with my funny knitting and crocheting adventures (stop laughing…this is indeed a thing!). We need to do an “About Me” page, a login page, a registration page, and a main user interaction page. I’m planning to make the user interaction page a place where people can buy my patterns. Okay…I have exactly TWO patterns that anyone might be interested in buying, and one that’s still a scratched-up mess on a piece of paper, but the point is to make the page, so I’m going to muddle along with this the best I can.

Looks like I’m going to be busy over the weekend…

Day 4: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps…

Okay, I’m probably going to court controversy and hate mail, but I’m just going to say it: I can’t STAND Bootstrap.

We just spent the last few labs relieving existing code of “div-itis” by replacing the div elements with more meaningful HTML5 elements, as well as fixing other errors. It’s been interesting figuring out how to do this. But NOW…we’re expected to use Bootstrap for our CSS styling. As far as I can make out, this tosses our past efforts out the window, as it seems that Bootstrap uses NOTHING but div elements.

I know. There are all sorts of interesting examples and templates to toss together a site quickly. There are carousels, input forms, and even Jumbotrons. However, I don’t like that Bootstrap is essentially a black box. There’s no way of knowing how these different things work, unless you want to delve into the giant Bootstrap file itself.

Also, I just can’t stand the dreary colors. I know…one can add another stylesheet to tweak the colors and settings, but that’s almost harder than creating the CSS code from scratch! I just spent two hours trying to figure out how to manipulate a form that Bootstrap has solidly set to the point of not being able to budge it. I can’t even get the damn input boxes to be inline with the descriptions!

Okay, time to go breathe into a paper bag…tomorrow is another day… 👢🥾👢

Day 3: I am but a shadow of my former self

The fact that it’s 10 p.m. and I’m still wearing my work ID badge should tell you everything you need to know about my day…

As I’m sitting here struggling and banging my head on my desk over my Code Bootcamp homework that involves HTML and tables, and forms, and hopefully remembering my Git commands so that I don’t somehow hose my master repo AGAIN–here are the following things I’ve discovered that I no longer give a rat’s ass about:

    • Cute Facebook Posts
    • Anything currently trending on Twitter
    • The news
    • People’s needless dramas
    • Anything adorable involving anyone’s child or pet.
    • Whatever it is people watched on TV last night.

I STILL haven’t looked at my actual work email yet today.  The company could have been sold to China for all I know.  Thankfully, no one has been clamoring for my help on anything in relation to my old job.  I can’t decide if I’m happy about this or deeply disappointed.

UPDATE…OMG…I DID IT!!!  I managed to make it through all my homework!  What a relief!  

Now I have to get to bed so that I can go through this all over again tomorrow…somehow, getting ready for bed seems exhausting… 

Day 2, or…”Git” in’ the hang of things!

I know…the Git puns just write themselves! Even our instructor has dropped a few: “Well, let’s ‘git’ on with this!”

In all seriousness, we all now “git” Git! (Sorry…couldn’t resist another one.) We created a repository, went back and forth between the CMD prompt, GitHub, and Visual Studio Code at a dizzying pace. I took feverish notes, trying to keep track of it all. For our training, I’ve decided to go old-school and just write out all my notes. Every time I try to type notes, I find I don’t mentally retain anything. This has been working out much better.

We all ultimately prevailed and managed to not only create masters and branches in GitHub, we also used Ampps to create localhost copies of our web pages and code. For my HTML & CSS exercise for Git, I (natch) came up with a knitting theme: “Knitting is the New Yoga–NOT”.

I even managed to repair the repository that I’d managed to mangle in the Pre-Work! So exciting…

I can’t wait until tomorrow to do more!

Day 1!

…a fine, if EXHAUSTING start!

Not sure how well I’m going to be able to blog for every single day of my training, if today was any indication…and this was just merely the set up of our class laptops! We loaded up Visual Studio Code, Node.js, Angular, I think something called AMPPS, and I’ve completely lost track of what else. I’m a bit disappointed that we’re using Visual Studio Code, as I prefer using Notepad++ for a code editor, but at least this time I managed to set Visual Studio Code up correctly, unlike when I did the pre-work. I’m tempted to reinstall it on my home machine, now that I know better…

The good news is that I really like all my classmates so far. Fun fact…I’m not the oldest one in the class! I’m also not the only BA who’s decided to take the developer plunge–we have a nice mix of people from all different past jobs in the class.

Our instructor is great. I’m liking that he is really taking the time to make sure we’re all comfortable with the material before he moves onto the next topic. He did a great job of explaining Git and GitHub, about which which I was completely at sea–when we did the pre-work I really didn’t think I’d ever figure Git out at all. He’s going to cover more about Git tomorrow.

Only downside, other than the ghastly long commute…I really need to figure out HOW I’m going to keep in shape! I can manage strength training at the gym on Friday night and Sunday, but I’m also used to walking on my lunch hour. Notice I say “hour.” There IS no hour lunch with this course…

…and don’t even get me started on how I’m supposed to keep up my knitting schedule!

Last day of my old life, and onto a new one!

…except that everyone in my old life has my cellphone number.

Today marked my last workday as a business analyst. I said goodbye to my boss, with the understanding that, hopefully, I’ll be back in the same department as a developer. I said goodbye to my coworkers, who are happy for me–including all the developers, who all seem pleased that I am now going to be joining their ranks in the Realm of Nerdom.

I think my replacement is good to go with the KT. If not, I’ve given him a lot of people to tap for information. He’s going to have to make do, as I’ve been told that, going forward, I am to be fully concentrating on Coding Bootcamp.

That seems foreign, somehow. Any other time I’ve been away from a job for any length of time, I’ve been bombarded by calls, texts, and emails from coworkers who seemingly couldn’t type a sentence of requirements, hold a meeting, run a SQL query, or look up one reference in my absence.

Before you get incensed at my “ego,” I’m not speaking just about myself. According to an informal survey I’ve taken of my friends and acquaintances, this is the way it is with ALL our jobs. Whether you work in Corporate America, the corner store, a hospital, or as a chef in a restaurant, employers and employees–now emboldened by the wonderful world of texting and email–can follow you EVERYWHERE when you have time away. Even if you leave the state and change your name, they still seem to find you.

It was bad enough in the days when they could just call you. In Cape Cod on vacation one year, I emerged naked from the shower, dripping shampoo and soap, because my coworker (who had the number of my vacation cottage) called to ask why a certain mainframe job failed. Before you ask WHY she had the landline number to my cottage…well, it was actually her family’s cottage. The deal was that I got to stay there for free off-season, with the only payment being that I would clean the place to get it ready for the paying renters the following week. The other unforeseen payment turned out to be having to be on-call for any and every hiccup in our daily processes, whether this be a man-made or machine-made disaster.

So, it’s going to be interesting to see if I can really manage to fully take the plunge into my new adventure at Code Academy without a whole host of texts, IMs, emails, voicemails, and calls creeping in like a bad rash…