Weeknotes - 04 Makers PreCourse

ruthmoog - May 27 '19 - - Dev Community

End of Pre Course Klaxon !!!

It's the last week of the part-time course and time to kick back before the real work starts.

Pair Programming

This week involved trying to fit in as much pairing as possible. I met up remotely with my cohort buddy, James, to pair on FizzBuzz1 with TDD, then did the exact same thing with my mentor Ayelisha2 the next day.
Pairing remotely is great for verbalising ideas and practising articulate communication. James and I decided our goal up front and out loud, and split up our sessions. We set up a collaborative repo on GitHub and used it to share code. We finished with a mini-retro gave ourselves a pat on the back & observed we could to better at refactoring as we go.

Ping-pong pairing in a nutshell:

  1. Write a test
  2. Watch it fail
  3. Make it pass
  4. Refactor
  5. Repeat!
  • Each time you write a failing test you switch navigator/driver roles
  • When you start repeating code that's an indicator you can probably refactor something

Office Hours With Top Celeb Ali Spittel3

I was lucky enough to bag a 15 min meeting with blogger, educator, developer Ali Spittel. She offered personal advice on succeeding at bootcamp, and how to get the most from my portfolio website.

💡 Ali has a whole blog post on how to build an excellent portfolio3 btw

Tips for my portfolio

Ali suggested I start by making my site more readable and fully responsive. When selecting which side-projects to big-up, it's best to focus on building things outside of the box that are memorable - and link to both the code repo and the project itself.

I'm interested in accessibility (or a11y for short), so Ali recommended to use lighthouse testing like a checklist and to read Lindsey Kopacz's blog4.

Making the Most of Makers5

  1. Go to office hours with the coaches, and make use of 1to1 time
  2. Attending tech events and meet-ups is a great way to meet people for life beyond bootcamp
  3. It will be a rollercoaster - that's normal!

Misc.

  • Big thanks to Ali Spittel3 for her advice and time 🙏
  • Had a lot of fun learning JavaScript with Lauren8 🦄
  • Slack was alive with reports of flies this week - looking forward to meeting them
  • Excited that qui6 is delivering a beginner coding workshop at his office!
  • I did a BeeWalk7 in the rain with some friends, the clover was blooming and we saw lots of bumblebees - but only 3 species 🐝

Weeknotes Notes

  1. FizzBuzz | wiki
  2. Ayelisha Amoah | DEV
  3. Ali Spittel Building a Kickass Portfolio | Article | DEV
  4. Lindsey Kopacz A11y with Lindsey | website
  5. Makers | website
  6. Chris James | website | @quii
  7. BeeWalk | website
  8. Lauren Zammit | LinkedIn

Edit: This post was edited to include Lauren Zammit's profile - May 2019

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