Galen's Adventures in Programming

Yesterday was our Career Kick off and Graduation at Launch Academy.  Over the past 10 weeks on campus I have learned an amazing amount about programming, whether it's TDD, pair-programming, starting a project, or learning a new language.  I created a Capstone Project, called the Family Newsletter, where I demonstrated these skills in application with a 2 week deadline.   After graduation, it's easy to ask... now what?  For me, the answer is simple, yet 2-pronged: 1. Apply for Jobs! This might be pretty obvious, but as much as I love programming I would love even more to be able to do it full-time as part of a team of great individuals. 2. Keep Learning! The best part of being a Developer is continuously learning new things.  I noticed that a lot of companies I was researching were asking for a knowledge of Java, or had some Java in their full-stack list of technologies.  I'm going to try going through a couple of introductory courses in Java to get at least a tast

There are only 4 days of Launch Academy left, and it is staggering to think of how much I have learned in the few weeks of class.  I know that I won't stop learning after graduation, and I certainly won't stop coding!  I will be writing some code every day, and trying to get back into the habit of coming here to talk about it. The coolest thing I've discovered this past week and a half while working on my capstone project is QRcode.react , which is a pretty easy way to generate custom QR codes in React apps. I've always felt that QR codes hold a magical appeal, so figuring it out was really exciting.  Using my phone to read a code generated on my computer wasn't the most practical experience, but it's so cool! I think that's one of the things I love most about programming.  I hope I never take for granted that ability to finally "see behind the curtain."  In the coming weeks I will be applying to Developer jobs galore, and I know that the amaz

It is such an amazing feeling to hear other people talking about using code you've written, without even knowing you were the one to do it. My bootcamp, Launch Academy, has been working on a Ruby gem called 'make_it_so' that will allow students and developers to get up and running on Rails projects even easier than with 'rails new.'  It contains React and Webpacker from the start, and makes new projects really simple to get going.  The one thing that was missing was 'database_cleaner'.   It was really frustrating to have tests pass the first time, and give you errors the second time because of identical entries in your database.  Almost everyone in the class that was writing tests found themselves needing to add database_cleaner to their code. So I forked 'make_it_so', added an installation and tests for database_cleaner, and committed a pull request.  Now I hear people in class saying things like "Oh, I'm using the pre-database_clea