Oauth

Oauth is a system used in authentification on the web nowadays.

The idea is that authenticating is easy, with password and username/email/name/whatever-id-you-want. But this is not secure enough. Plus, people get tired of logging on every site they use.

Oauth came out in 2010, when people were trying to remedy to that problem with different theories, OpenID being one of them.

So in the end, they came up with this way to identify an user on one site, and share that identification on every app authorized by this site and the user.

Let me try to explain the process a bit :

• The app maker registers on the giver’s site (Twitter, Facebook, …)
• The giver’s site give the app maker a private API Token, a code that can be use to identify that app when it talks with the giver’s site.

…Time passes…

• An user comes on the site, tries to log in
• The app redirects to the giver’s site where the user is asked to log in. In the background, the app gives the API Token on the way, as a proof that the user is coming from there.
• The user authorizes his account to be linked/identified on this app. The giver’s saves that decision.
• The giver’s site sends back a User Token to the app.

Now, the app has an API Token and a User Token. Using these 2, the app can ask the giver’s site for info (last tweets? send tweet?), and while this is true, the user is authenticated on the site.

In the end, the user only has to login once, and nobody has the user password or anything. And anytime somebody’s info is asked for, the giver’s site verifies that the asking app has the rights.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we played with yesterday ;) This : Tweet from Heroku is an example ;)

Other languages / Frameworks

The world of development is full of a lot (really… a tremendous amount) of languages and frameworks. People don’t use them the same way, in the same places, but I can tell you that to do one thing, you have multiple tools in development.

In DBC, we learn about Ruby, Javascript, HTML, and CSS, mostly. We cover a few framework for each of those too. But in the end, we are not here to learn languages.

No good developer knows one language by heart.
… Let me rephrase and split that that:

• A good developer does not know fully a language, knowing that is what makes him really good.
• A good developer learns new languages/frameworks all the time. One does not “know one”, but learns many.

I try to work on that and get the second part up and running, and that is really fun. Also, using tools made by and for other people is really eyes opening. I love it.

I had ideas about that yesterday and I’m thinking I’ll learn a bit more about the languages I already approached but did not use that much as soon as I have 5 minutes (probably this weekend).

A fun day with Armando

Yesterday, we paired with Armando again.
I was looking forward to it. He has been down for a bit, with a lack of self confidence and some doubts about his skills, and I was looking forward to doing my best to work on helping him with that.

Well, you know what? He f*cking rocks! We had fun the whole day, finished most of the challenges, and the best part :
Teachers did not try and assess him. And if they don’t, that means that THEY don’t doubt him. And one thing that I know :
If the person that’s making it hard on you, teaching you, and taught hundreds before, has no doubt about you… that probably means you should stop doubting and assume you do (not really fully) know what you’re doing.

Observer Design Pattern

Design patterns are a very important thing in Development. The idea is that experienced developers came up with the idea that no matter the language, the experience, the software they were building, they always ended up on the exact same problems. And then they came up with a “simple solution” for that, simpler than the problem at least.

So, they came up with design patterns they could use next time they would encounter that same problem. Many of them are useful mainly in statically typed languages like Java or C, but most of them are actually useful, for your own logic development, and for the time you might have to end up using these languages.

Also, since it is a pretty complicated notion, it does show people (like recruiters…) that you actually know what you are talking about, which is not a bad thing right?

Yesterday, I did a lightning talk about the Observer Pattern. The idea is that it is a solution to the problem :

• I have objects that must be aware of changed of a particular object

The solution is pretty simple. You actually give all the info to the observed (called observable) object.

• The observer gets an “update” method that will be triggered by the observable with the info it sent.
• The observable gets a “notify” method that triggers the update method of the observers
• The observable has a list of observers and relative methods (add/remove/number of them)

And that is it. According to the language you’ll use, you will have modules to do so (Observable in Ruby), Interfaces (like some implementations in Java), but the idea will always be the same.

Now go on and play with it !

Engineering Empathy Aftermath

We still have Engineering Empathy in phase 2. Yesterday was the last session, about what triggers us and how to respond accordingly.

I did use that without even knowing about what I was doing. The idea is that when something triggers you, you stop, breathe, think about what’s happening, then select the best response and respond. I tend to do that myself, mostly because I am overthinking everything.

Now, yesterday was also 3rd EE session for the phase 1, the Golden Bears. It is a really strong and heavy session, even though it is also a very liberating one. I felt like I wanted to be there for the people and so I spent my evening with anybody I could find, and that was nice.

They are affected, but they seem ok… You may find it strange, but just like a big brother about his younger siblings, I feel relieved to see they are doing fine…

Looking for a job

Things are going well at DBC, but yesterday I had a bit of time and ended up thinking about jobs. After all, that is one of the endpoint of this program, a reason why I came here.

I know that before I came here, hired was the only site I tried to join, and I just not being accepted. But now, things have changed. I have good proofs of what I can do, I have more mastery, people that can vouch for me…

I am thinking about that way in advance, but I feel like I want and have to. Being a foreigner, these things may be trickier, so I need to be better, and faster.

So now, time to work on side project to show my worth, and then use that!

More OOJS

Yesterday, I paires with Harry. We have a great dynamic going on and we ended up building a good MVC system on Javascript for one of the challenges we had.

People don’t necessary get it so by the end of the week I’ll try to send some code that I came up with for private projects, as an example.

As for the rest, we had a lot of fun and played with that a bit, to the point that we ended up falling short on a problem that apparently many people have. It feels good to not feel like you’re outside of that whole development world ;)

The problem we had was : We made a Controller class, and just to Namespace and separate concerns, all the AJAX calls were used from the Ajax Controller, a class of its own.

Now the problem we hit is :

• Who calls the Ajax controller? –> The controller
• What does the Ajax controller in case of a successful request? –> The controller

That is a problem, how do you link two objects when you can not create both at the exact same time?
And so our solution was to pass one as the argument to the other (The Ajax Controller knows about the controller), and then add the Ajax Controller to the controller

In demonstration :

var AjaxController = function(controller){
    this.controller = controller;
}
// Do stuff with the ajax Controller

var Controller = function(){}
// Do stuff with the Controller

$(document).ready(function(){
    var controller = new Controller();
    var ajaxController = new AjaxController({ 
        controller: controller // First link
    })
    controller.ajaxController = ajaxController; // Link back
})

In the end, that looks very hack-ish. But then it is actually a question that people have nowadays : How do you do that? And like every good programming problem : There is no right or wrong answer ;)

I’ll stick with that for now.

APIs

APIs are interfaces for your program to be able to play with some web apps around. The idea is that instead of posting status via Facebook, you build an app that can do that for you somewhere else. The link between that App and Facebook is that API.

Your app will send a message to Facebook saying (write_status) and that will write the status.

Yesterday we started playing with Twitter and that was fun, and today we play on more… So expect some nice links in the near future ;)

Changes

I feel like DBC changes people. Not necessarily in the best way, but that does change people anyway.

I feel changed, I AM changed. But then, you will be able to see that the next time you meet me ;)

I am more confident, deal with my problems a more logical way, I empathize more with my peers… All in all, I like to think I took the good in that program. I may also have taken the bad, but then I don’t know about that yet… Only time will tell!

Awesome project

Yesterday we had our second group project of phase 2. The idea of this one is : create a new version of SurveyMonkey. This time, we could choose our groups. Just like … most of the time. I checked around, saw Armando, he nodded, and we’re in the same group! We grouped with Henry, a new guy who repeated our phase, that I had not had the chance of talking with so far, Chermaine, who I had yet to pair with (really sorry >.<), even though we’re in the same accountability group (A group of 3 students of the same cohort that have to take care of each other), and Chris Woodrich, who is really an awesome dude, even though we end up messing with each other all the time.

Armando came with the awesome team name : The Ultimate Amazing Super Best Friends!

You can check how our project is going on : https://github.com/chriswoodrich/TUASBF/

We have an awesome dynamic, we’re all very happy to work with each other, and the project is really going well. I can’t wait til we present it on monday!

MVC Javascript

I won’t talk for hours about that, I’ve been talking about it for days so you’re probably tired about it already, but Javascript is to be used with an object oriented programming style. You can do it, and if you don’t you will end up having a lot of troubles.

Now, we work on small JS projects here and there and even though I had some trouble finding where some part of my code would go (View or Controller for the listeners etc…). Now I do know and I really like it.

I could spend hours explaining how to do stuff, but instead, I’ll just say : I do it, I like it, I can explain it if you want, and I’ll try to release some code where I do that on my Github whenever I can.

Cohort tribe spirit

A few things that Sherif (The guru that taught us in phase 1 haha) told us :

• “If you think that you can become developers in 9 weeks, you are insane. All of you. But then, that is that common insanity that will take you there. It is that shared insanity that will make you actually succeed in that.”
• “You are a tribe. You are seen as such, you have a tribe spirit that is the way people and feel your whole group. Every cohort has a different spirit, and gives a different feeling”

These ideas will not be surprising to anybody who knows the guy. Now, we had a few nice talk about this.

Nowadays, we have 3 cohorts in DBC. The Sea Lions, in phase 3, the Banana Slugs (US!) in phase 2, and Golden Bears in phase 1. And apparently, even just these 3 have a VERY different spirit.

Sea Lions are apparently like university students. Their first instinct is more to work alone, even though they don’t have any problem in forming groups in need be.

The Banana Slugs are seen as overachieving kids. We are the kind of kids that say things like “Oh look dad, a mountain! Look at me I’ll go climb the thing faster that anybody else!”. We crave on challenges that we can work on together and just be as awesome as one could be! Haha

The Golden Bears are much more “shy”. Compared to us and our 2 hours of questions and ideas exchanges that we had to timebox everyday, the echo I get from some of them I talked to and from their instructors is that they are very silent and studious.

At the end, none of us is right or wrong, but seeing that big of a difference in such a short amount of time is really interesting.

But then, the idea is that the presence of all of these people is what is actually helping us get to the end. We work 15 hours a day, something I would NEVER have thought would happen before coming here. We support each other, help each other, and at the end I think that Sherif was actually right, that common insanity that makes us stay that late, that makes us work our asses off without even realizing that, is what takes us where we are.

We learned Javascript/Object Oriented JS in one week, Everything we could about Sinatra, MVC WebApp frameworks, and all that in one week… That happens only in such conditions and I am really grateful about that!

Small and repetitive code

Yesterday, I worked on portfolio projects. They are projects to check if you know about what we’ve been using, for yourself or for the teachers. They are small, easy, and fun… And everything is relative, like Einstein said.

One of the project was hard, but not because of the complicated content, but because of the amount of repetitive code we had to do.

Don’t get the bad idea though, the challenge was cool, but it was about making a big bunch of code that we have been making for 2 weeks now. I did it late, and because of that I just ended up having to re do again, instead of doing it in the middle of my learning.

Anyway, the thing I got from that challenge is : Code is repetitive! That’s why people take and make shortcuts. Sometimes, you have to make the same thing again, a few times, and that sucks. Copy pasting and all that works, but in this particular context, it did not…

DB Constraints

I did a lightning talk about DB Constraints. The idea is that the apps that we build with Ruby On Rails, Sinatra, Nodejs, or all these things, use tools that allow you to not have to deal with database languages and small tasks by yourself.

But then, people tend to forget that in the end, we ARE working with databases. And what if one day your app falls apart? What if you want to change some portion of your code, among which is the DB reader thingy?

If you don’t put any constraints on your database, then you have a problem because now people can use empty username, 1230912301921309 characters numbers, etc…

So to prevent that, put constraints! When I say constraints, you can limit your 4 things (or 5) :

• :limit : Works for binary, numbers, strings, and texts, and set the max number of characters
• :null : Allows (Or not allow, if you give it false) this column to have a null entry in it
• :default : Give a default value to that field when none is entered
• :precision / :scale : Specifies the number of digits you can give, and the number of digits after the decimal

See? That was not hard!

Now, go ahead and go read : this.

Connecting

One thing we do here is connecting. We spend all of our time together, we are now a huge family where everybody has to know and live with everybody.

Yesterday, Irene and I “cashed in” my free meal from Sherif, our big first phase teacher that we don’t see much because we’re in phase 2 now, because we finished our sudoku solver that solves 170 sudokus in less than a minutes (8.5 seconds whaddup!).
That was really fun, we ate a lot, and learnt a lot… again. Incredible, when he is “off duty”, we learn a lot from him!

He told us a lot about how he had trouble connecting with the new cohort and I feel bad for them.

Today, I went/am going to eat with Strand, and that is awesome. He’s a 2nd phase teacher and I feel like I’m connecting with everybody and I love it ^.^

Ajax

What is Ajax?

Well… It is not a cleaning product), or a football team. Ajax, or more A.J.A.X. stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XML. Wikipedia)

Javascript is a very well known scripting language used widely on the internet nowadays (I would say on webpages, but the use is even wider than that). XML is a markup language that looks a lot like HTML (One could even say like two brothers –hint– with the same parents –hint–…). Basically, it is supposed to be a way to stock data between tags that look like : < stuff >This is stuff< /stuff >.

In short, what AJAX is is a link between the Javascipt (= the language that makes stuff display dynamically in your page) interact with stuff, using XML (at first, now that part changed), and then giving you info back, without disrupting the lifecycle of your page viewing.

When you get on Facebook and get to the bottom of the page, you know how it loads the rest? AJAX. Javascript sends a request, get data, adds it in your browser. You don’t reload, JS does this refreshing for you, and replaces what needs to be replaced.

If you’re looking for more examples : You load Buzzfeed, and only the first image loads first: AJAX. You read twitter and it shows you a new tweet on top when one appears: AJAX. You register on any site that is less than 10 years old and it just shows a “You have been registered”: AJAX.

Let’s just say it is used everywhere nowadays, more of less, to enable the “one-page” web-browsing habits you got used to.

And that is what we did yesterday. The idea, in more technical terms, is that your javascript (or JQuery) sends the same request that you were sending from a link, or a button (POST, GET, etc… RESTful routes), and treat that data. It can redirect if need be, or just print that new alert, tweet, post, or even just do nothing even though the server got all the info you sent (Bad practice guys… stop doing that, please)

We did it with simple exercises but that was part of the things that I did not know about. Now I do, and I love it. Expect some nice projects with that when I get some time!

MVC

MVC stands for Model-View-Controller (And yes, today is acronyms day in Quentin’s world).

It is part of the “Software design patterns”. If you don’t know about design patterns and you are a developer, please be ashamed of yourself.

Design patterns) are a funny and important topic. The idea is that at some point, people realized that no matter the language, the scope of the problems, the kind of apps, etc… The problems developers were facing could very often fit in one of a very few number of cases. And once they had a solution for a problem, they could actually re use that same solution for every one of the problems they had later that had similar traits with the one they just solved.

So from that, they built “patterns”, saying : When you have Problem 1, it can be solved with Solution 1. The problem is not necessarily clearly defined and may very well be more widely defined than what they thought about, just like the solution is very often quite hard to understand, maybe even more than the problem itself. Yet, Problem 1 will always be solved by Solution 1. You can make something up, but in the end you’ll just redefine Solution 1.

Think about it this way : Some people one day invented wheel (Great example). We changed the kind of wheels we used, the materials we used, and we even made stuff that remotely look like wheels but are not really, will never roll and all that.
But in the end, where you need something that can help things turn, an object that supports other things and enable it to move, you make a wheel. If you try to make it another way, it’ll not really fit until you make a wheel. Maybe one day somebody will find a great counterargument for the wheel. Yet, that solution seems to be pretty useful, we’ve been using it for millenias after all.

Design patterns are like wheels of your program. You use them, and you don’t have to search for what is the best solution to support your object and make it move easily, you don’t reinvent the wheel every time you want to do that (Yes, I used that example for that ‘pun’).

If you develop, you should learn about and start using them. You will be asked about them, they will be an insight on your proficiency, and using them will save you a great lot of time.

Among these Design Patterns, MVC is an architectural decision where you decide that instead of putting everything together, you’re gonna split things up :
– Models : They are your object. They know their states, and they can change/add/return theses states. A tree has branch, but a tree does not cut itself. It can just … be, and have characteristics.
– Views : What you are going to show that user. Are you going to print stuff to the console? Print in the page? Play that in Gifs? It only knows about itself, and you tell the ‘view’ to ‘Show the menu’, or ‘Give the answer’ and give it an answer to show. – Controllers : The core. It has Models and views, and makes things happen between them. It is where you logic should be.

If I have time I’ll get you some example of that made by a new boot. She really defined it the way it should, and if you need an example, that will be it ^.^

Congratulations

I can’t be speaking only about coding. The header says “A frenchman discovering the world”, not “A coder coding code”.

So today, I’ll just say that yesterday, I got my first congratulations for the work I have accomplished. And that is a big deal for me.

For those who don’t know me, I am in DevBootcamp not to graduate… But to ACE it. I am here to show the world that I CAN do it. That is what I came for. That is what I work my ass for and I will keep on doing that.

I want to be the proof for everybody I can that, no matter what you’re told (I was told when I was a kid that I may just not live up to 20, I was told that I needed a diploma, I was told a lot of things), no matter what happens, what people think of you, you can be what you want to.

I have always believed that one could be what he wanted to be if he poured his heart into it (Too much disney, some may say), even though some times and/or places may have been pressuring hard on that belief, but now I want to be the living proof that this is true.

And if you feel like this is far from the truth…

Watch me.

OOJS again and Namespacing

Yesterday I told you about Object Oriented Javascript. Today I have to tell you again :

If you make some software in Javascript and DON’T use that, you are a BAD person and should feel BAD.

Javascript is powerful, and the community using it gives you some really good tools that enable you to make almost anything in JS today, but coding, like what I did before, in a whole file with random stuff around is NOT the way to go. One could try and go Procedural, but then, even if procedural programming is actually a thing, it makes code that is a bit more messy, less maintainable, and less readable for the people working with you.

JS gives you classes, attributes, methods, instances, packs of methods and way to call them, inheritance, and everything you would need to make “real” software. If you don’t use it, then you’re not doing it right.

The way to actually name everything to identify and sort them the way you understand it is called namespacing. That IS a thing, and should happen in all of the code you write. That is what I have spent the last articles talking about. That is the way to go when working on big project, even alone, and now you have to do that. You’ve been warned. Twice.

Helpers

In Dev Bootcamp phase 2 we have thing thing we call lightning talks. In the afternoon, we register at least once a week to talk for 4 minutes about one particular topic. We start the week not knowing about the topic, but then we learn about it, and have 4 minutes to share about it.

Yesterday, I had one about helpers. Helpers are all of these “packs” of methods that you can use in other parts of your apps. That is the name that has been given to these packs in MVC app frameworks like Node.js, Sinatra and Rails are good examples.

The idea is that you have a separation between your code that shows stuff to the user, the one that does things, and the one that stocks and pulls out data. Helpers are packages that allow one of two things :
– Be able to encapsulate a pack of code you use at multiple times in one simple method you would call instead (GET DRY !, and use namespacing like I’ve been telling you ! )
– Be able to use simple code in the things that are supposed to only be able to print stuff to the user (ex : Show a logout button when the user is logged in. You just print something “If logged_in == true”)

In Sinatra or Rails you can actually even build a whole module to plug in helpers, I did that, that was fun… Until I realized that people did it before and that I did not need to reinvent the wheel.

Lack of sleep

Last week, I went to sleep at 1AM or more every day. After a week of doing that and waking up between 7 and 8 I can tell you : Don’t do that.

I have been feeling a bit tired (what a surprise…) and ended up not being myself, like every time I am tired. When I am like that, I tend to be less patient, and to get things done silently.

Now, DBC is about pair programming… And so I ended up trying to make things work that were just remotely connected to our project, without sharing much about where I was and what I was doing, and in the end did not get stuff to work. At some point, I had lost :
– My focus
– My buddy’s focus
– My time
– My energy and happiness (I’m grumpy when I don’t make things work…)

We ended up finishing the project and doing it a way I can teach people too, so that’s cool, but it took us so much time, I wasted so much time, and I felt so bad for my pair, that most of my day was actually really tiring.

Now, I slept more, and I am learning from my mistakes. today is another day!

(Plus, we had great talks with Armando, and Armando rocks haha. Oh and Armando got a new challenger, Christine is pretty awesome too :p) (Though, to be fair, Janet, Roy, Nic, and many others rock too haha…)

OOJS

Ok, dev things. You probably heard about Javascript. If you want to hear more about it you can check -Wikipedia-. Object oriented programming is a way to model your code in objects that interact with others. Again, Wikipedia has all the infos.

Yesterday, we had 2 parts in the day. First part was coding Javascript a bad way. Second part was the right way. The right way is apparently OO, Object Oriented. This allows you to actually make your code “look” like a developer’s code. I did some JS before and it was cool, fine, and interesting. But what I was doing was the first thing : Random lines of code altogether, not in objects, functions, anything.

Say I wanted a button to hide another button, I made that code in a small script, not organized, in a random file.

That is NOT the way to do it. It works when you want simple things, but then what if you start having a lot of lines, like you do most of the time? Well what happens is a big mess of a code that nobody knows about because in human langage none of that is understandable. When you make a complicated code to make your page glow, somebody has to read the whole thing to know what it does. If you encapsulate it in a function called “Blink”, people will know exactly what it is the moment they see it!

And then what if that blink was a function of the object “PageManager”? Well, then you have very understandable code, manageable, maintainable, and definitely object oriented.

Building JS code without Object-Oriented Programming is like trying to build houses without any plan. Yes, sometimes the house does not fall apart. But the house is not maintainable, you have no idea about what’s up with it, and if you do that, you’re a bad person and you should feel bad about yourself ;)

JQuery

JQuery is an open source library. People thought Javascript lacked function and could use simplification of some others, and so they built that tool with special functions, in Javascript, that give you that extension, that package of code people would use.

That simplifies web a lot. But then… That is a very risky path to take. People tend to think that because it is easy, they don’t really have to code it any other way that like a very long … bunch of code that does stuff with the page. No object orientation, no namespacing (Naming the things you just build, objects and functions), and in the end… No readability.

If you do that, well, just like this sentence in my first part : You are a bad person and you should feel bad about yourself!

Coding is not about making something work right now, coding is about building things, and when you build you plan, and organize everything. It works for Houses, Cars, Planes, and definitely for programming.

A bunch of code, be it JQuery, Javascript, Ruby, C, any langage whatsoever, should be organized.

So yesterday we learned that. In the morning we randomly JQuery-ed pages around the web, and on the afternoon we started encapsulated everything and naming what we did.

Hugs

I will not complain, not again. But what I did yesterday was talk. I talked about things in my life I did not like, feelings I had that are not out in the open all of the time. Dev Bootcamp tend to do that to people.

But then yeah, sharing with everybody around helps a lot in solidifying thoughts in my mind. In a way, it is my own therapy!

So yeah, yesterday, I talked about my life. I talked about why I don’t want to go back to France. Any other country but not France. I talked about what I felt… And so I got a lot nice feedback from people, plus hugs for the bad parts.

I’m happy and grateful I am among all of these people, and I am not looking forward to having to move on, out of DBC ;)

Pressure

Yesterday was our first group project day of phase 2. The subject was “A Flashcards Game”.

We had until noon to find a whole plan for a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), that we could complete before 5PM. Then at 5PM we had to present the project. We have the rest of the weekend to work on it and on Monday we’ll present the final release.

With that being said, we also got lectures, and lightning talks (short lectures on specific topics made by other students), and so our afternoon basically started at 3.20PM…
So with that, plus the 6 people that never really paired altogether, it ended up being a huge mess.

If you know me, you know that if there is one goal that I have in life, one thing that I am confident in, one thing that I like to do, it is : Leading groups.

So today, I took the whiteboard, tried to planned a bit, and we went on. We were 6 so it was a bit of a mess, but once we got the ideas all on paper (or whiteboard…), the rest was easy.

The problem though, is that nobody handles pressure very well, nobody including me, especially with the exhaustion after this week. I ended up going around trying to fix every problem of the team, and people ended up panicking a bit and falling in easy traps.

In the end, we were literally 10 minutes short when the presentation started (I coded for 10 minutes when people started talking and got it working decently…)

The after presentation was much easier. I explained everything I knew that could be useful for the rest of the team, then we separated tasks, and went on to finish our first release. Expect a link and more info on Monday when we deliver!

I have to say, though, that going ending up listening to some music I had somewhere on my laptop made me very nostalgic, like if I had not been in France for years, but also helped calming me. I now have a rage, a will to conquer. I will succeed!

Accomplishment

A few accomplishments this week :

• I got to know the new cohort and they are really awesome. I managed to spend a lot of time doing that, while helping my cohort, learning, and finishing many challenges. I count that as a damn good achievement, if not the best I have every felt so far.
• We finished that MVP, managed to split everything correctly, and things are going well for monday!
• I managed to learn enough to not be categorized in “I am good in this skill” for anything that we learned so far. I understand what I am doing on every part of every challenge, I learned about everything we use and can use and make everything without frustration. That is something that I will be proud of for a while. Now I do need to keep up with that
• Even if I am not a native, struggle with my accent and my language skills sometimes, and I did not lead any team for a while, I can still make myself useful in organizing our groups. It’s a relief, because with the knowledge we accumulate in here, sometimes I’m afraid I’ld just forget the things we don’t use…

And finally a new one that is not for me :
My mother, who has been struggling to lose weight for a while, is finally losing enough that I can even start thinking if she did not lose a leg or something. (I have ways to keep track, call me big brother).

That may be nothing to you, but I want to say that : I am proud.

More work

The weekend is going to be full of work everywhere. I want to show my sudoku solver to phase 1 guys so that they would do better than me, but I also have to work on the group project, I have portfolio projects, and I have personal projects on the side. 24 hours days suck.

Oh and my first portfolio project is up. It is not full but I’ll finish that in the weekend. You can check it at : Quentin’s Notes

It is a note-taking app. Not very beautiful, and the code (I’ll release that later) is not very glorious, but that’s the first one, and it does work ;)

Have a great weekend everybody and see you… maybe later this weekend actually… If I find a way to stop time to write.

Confidence

Yesterday, we paired with Ivan. He is awesome! And we completed the blog engine with everything that we need. It now works, has tags, user management, perfect! The only thing is that it is not beautiful, but we got what we wanted from that. You can see that here : Our super blog engine~

But then I realized it took us more time than the others. I feel very confident and could explain every line of code in all of that, but then what if I just spent too much time on that?

I feel like Phase 2 is hard on confidence. I complete stuff, learn all the time, and then compare myself.

But then, we got code review. At the end of that, I know that my work is fine. My code is clean, upgradable of course, but not needed upgrades, and not with the things we know so far.
Another thing that actually helped me was : We took 45 minutes with matthew, and we created our own version of bit.ly. I’ll share the link when I have it deployed ;)

So in the end, we took more time on the main challenges… And that gave us the possibility to finish the rest much faster. So in the end, I am still in the race… We are ALL! But we need to keep on going.

(Lack of) Sleep

First phase was cool. We live nearby, we work until late, but then we go back fast, sleep, and come in late in the morning.

Phase 2 is not like that. The fact that I did not feel really confident about the amount of work ended up making me, and a lot of us, go back home later and later everyday. Yesterday, we got back home at 1AM…

So in the end, bye bye the 8 hours nights for this week… But then I need to sleep, because DBC is a marathon, not a sprint. And less sleep –> less effective the next days. So this weekend, I’ll sleep. A lot.

It is my plan, and I will stick to that! If not, I’ll get hit very hard by my fiancee… I am scared.

Links

Everything is linked. We are all, the things we do are all, the whole world is just a big net. In DBC, and especially in the hard times we are facing sometimes, it just makes us connect more. I feel like everybody around me is now part of my family. Even the new cohort are like little brothers and sisters I just got.
I love that. I love that new family, every one of them! (Or maybe not Matthew? I haven’t decided yet, he’s ok as Glenn)

Plus, small things make me think about that big net. Yesterday was a conference by a developer that works for Zendesk. Zendesk being the tool that I used in my work before DBC…

Things are related, that’s it. I don’t believe in randomness, I do believe in links too complicated to be understandable, but not in randomness.

Anyway, back to work now, expect some news tomorrow!