"I Listened!"

We've reached a new phase at CoderCamps for our troop in that we will now be transitioning away from the crowdfunding group project, and will begin to work on our own individual apps. I'll be saving the description of my solo work for another blog post; but, having just worked through a significant amount of code I'm beginning to feel as though I'm sitting at that same campfire as Antonio Banderas.

It's amazing what happens once you put all the pieces of a stack together with repeated practice, how the linguistic nuances inside MVC begin to speak to me so much more clearly. The new phase represents more than just movement towards greater responsibility--a de facto honing-in of coding linguistics such that my code will not only speak, but speak with elegance.

-Max

Coming to View

As part of a group project (and an understood internal NDA), I am going to leave a few details out of this conversation; but, our team at CoderCamps is working diligently towards launching a crowd-funding site similar to the Goliaths (Kickstarter/Indiegogo) that already exist in this sphere. The true aim of the project is to provide a similar social service while adding extra technical properties to enhance the user-experience of a crowd-funded project.  In any event, the project is large to say the least; and, as a result, sometimes it can take multiple days to implement code before being able to actually interact with the hard work you've put in and truly see some progress.

Today was that moment realized.

From a view, to the business layer, into our SQL database, and subsequently back again, I'm seeing successes across multiple features which leave me feeling a bit like I've reached my Finding Forrester moment.  Granted, neither Dave nor Nick speak with Scottish accents, but they have been instrumental in helping me find my own rhythm in ASP.NET.  There are still some obstacles to overcome and every day won't roll forward from my fingers similar to this morning's success, but I have every intention to punch the keys and then punch them some more.

-Max

Quote of the Day

The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction…. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary Fortran.

-Isaac Asimov, 1923

Breaking a Threshold

Thought it would be worth sharing to my limited audience that, for the first time, my language learning obsession followed me from the classroom and into the bedroom.

//   WHAT!>?

Well after having pored over C# for the entire day, I found myself mid-dream talking to my sister; and, while wanting to say that I'd be coming to visit her in 3 months, I instead told her "I'll be in NY in DateTime.UtcNow.AddMonths(3)." Fortunately for my dream she knew exactly what I was communicating.

It was a short and sweet exchange but certainly the first time coding practices crossed the threshold into my dream world.

Oh and I couldn't think of a link to bring in to this post so here's a song for the weekend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPqfFGQehAM

-Max

Bringing Leadership to Market

Today's post begins relating less to the daily going-ons in the classroom; but, I thought it worth sharing Simon Sinek's insight on leadership and its effects in the public space:

http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/04/how_great_leade/

While I'm currently focused on piecing together additional tools for my ASP.NET arsenal to build better usability in projects, I think it's increasingly important to understand the 'Why' during a build phase.  For example, when adding scope to a project I often ask whether extra features simply contribute to a 'What' we can provide our clients with, or if they represent a key elements in defining 'Why' those pieces are integral to our build.

This process of scope screening and limitation remains one of the processes I enjoy most as a new coder. It blends together a combination of critical thinking that reminds me of some literary methods, or perhaps proclivities, I've developed over the years.  As such I describe myself as subscribing to the Ernest Hemingway school of short-story writing, who once offered the advice (I'm paraphrasing) that, "if you're writing a short story, you better use every fucking bullet in your gun." In essence, what I take that to mean is, 'keep it clean, make your words effective, and don't waste my time.'

Same in coding--Understand your project, write it cleanly, make it effective; and, as a consequence your audience (clients) will understand 'Why' your code exists.

-Max

Doing It Right...Right?

"There's talking, there's reading, and then there's doing." -Nick Brittain

At this point we've been working our way through a number of different code processes. We've deployed classes, objects and methods in ASP.NET while also taking note on how to see the code interact with a SQL database.  Between controllers, adapters, interfaces, data models etc., it can get to be a bit confusing on how each of these independent operators interact, not to mention, an order of operations by which we should build all of these parts.  But before you get hung up on needing to understand that definition of each part as we implement them, it's more important to just do it(thanks Nike).

Write the code, write it again, and rebuild your project another time. Along the way, there's an unknown number of intellisense and/or build errors that will accumulate; but, that's the point. This has definitely been the most helpful way to understand how each component communicates to its corresponding 'partner in cybercrime.' The "Go To Definition" (a.k.a. the F12 wonder-child) function will be your best friend and will be the greatest tool in helping you connect the dots over the course of a project. Some may say, 'Hey, you're speaking in hyperbole considering that understanding English to begin with would be your greatest tool!' To the critics I would say speaking English really isn't a prerequisite for teaching yourself the basics of code operations.

After 2 weeks it seems quite apparent that persistence and an unquenchable thirst for learning are the back bones for understanding this new language.

-Max

Onward and Upward

First things first, I apologize for not being more consistent posting to my blog. The last week has been filled with getting acclimated to work flow, general surroundings, and, of course, diving head first into understanding C#.

More often than not, new error messages in Visual Studio cause my own brain to short-circuit; BUT, there are a couple things to bear in mind:

1. Google always has an answer--It may not be the one you're looking for but that's to be expected.
2. Peers always want to help as whatever question you may have will subsequently reinforce a colleagues understanding of the same material.

So keep calm, take a walk, and return to code. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.



I'll have more to report in the next couple days so future posts are pending.

-Max