A little something for people interested in becoming a Developer

Having recently “graduated” from a local non-profit programming bootcamp (Nashville Software School) I am often asked a various questions by friends and people I meet about getting into development.  The questions typically boiled down to “what steps to take to see if they have an aptitude for development, and what self-education resources are out there?”

I would tell them about NSS, how I heard about it, some of the steps we took in preparation for class, and tell them I would email them some resources we used as pre-work for along with other things I found helpful along the way. After doing this a few times I thought I should really find an easier way to share this information rather than forwarding an email over and over.

With this in mind, I thought “what better way to share this knowledge/information than to make a living, breathing GitHub repository?” This way it’s editable, shareable, open to collaboration, and always available for people to see. The “Code Shoulder” was born!

I am constantly adding new things I come across, and would love to see some pull requests from other like minded folks trying to help those who want to follow the developer path. By no means is this comprehensive, nor is it perfect. Just a collection of things I’ve found to be helpful (or possibly helpful!) to me on my journey thus far.

The Code Shoulder – A GitHub Repo by Eric Denton

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I like puns.

A Graduation, a Vacation, and a Couple Conferences…

Another 1am-ish blog posting!

November has been a really busy month for me and my family:

In between these social/educational/networking events I took some time to:

  • catch up on six months of sleep.
  • vote.
  • have a nice little “staycation” with my wife and 3 month old (3 MONTHS ALREADY!?).
  • plant three red maple trees in the front yard that I’ve been meaning to do since we moved here a couple years ago.
  • meet some good friends and contacts for lunch or a beer(s) to try to catch up
  • do a lot of “dad-ing” with my little buddy when my wife went back to work after her maternity leave was up.

Soon we’ll gallup into the Holiday season with Thanksgiving and the whole “Black Friday”/”Cyber Monday” shopping  insanity!

“Needless” to say, I haven’t really gotten my job search muscles flexed much yet, and my plan is to really hit the ground running in December (a notoriously slow hiring time of the year)! It’s been nice to take a few “slow” weeks after graduation to collect myself and my thoughts, but I’m itching to get out in the real world and make things happen.

I’m taking lunch chats, coffee talks, beer breaks, and anything else I can think of with people I admire, past NSS grads, Meetup pals, and more! I really can’t wait to get out there and learn more about the possibilities and opportunities that might come down the line.

JavaScript challenge

Conditional Challenge / JavaScript with TeamTreehouse

TeamTreehouse track I am in has a challenge related to the current topic I’m learning : JavaScript Conditionals. Here’s the challenge:

Challenge Instructions

  1. Ask at least five questions
  2. Keep track of the number of questions the user answered correctly
  3. Provide a final message after the quiz letting the user know the number of questions he or she got right.
  4. Rank the player. If the player answered all five correctly, give that player the gold crown: 3-4 is a silver crown; 1-2 correct answers is a bronze crown and 0 correct is no crown at all.

I think I did a pretty good job! I’m a total beginner still, but you have to start somewhere… Here’s the code:

var answer1 = 60; // minutes in an hour
var answer2 = 24; // hours in a day
var answer3 = 7;  // days in a week
var answer4 = 52; // weeks in a year
var answer5 = 10; // years in a decade
var score = 0;    // user score

//Question set 1
var guess1 = parseInt(prompt("How many minutes in an hour?"));
if (guess1 === answer1) {
    score += 1;   // rather than score = score + 1
  alert("That's right! Your current score = " + score);
} else {
  alert("Sorry Charlie! Your current score = " + score);
}
//Question set 2
var guess2 = parseInt(prompt("How many hours in a day?"));
if (guess2 === answer2) {
    score += 1;   // rather than score = score + 1
  alert("Nailed it! Your current score = " + score);
} else {
  alert("DOH! Your current score = " + score);
}
//Question set 3
var guess3 = parseInt(prompt("How many days in an week?"));
if (guess3 === answer3) {
    score += 1;   // rather than score = score + 1
  alert("Good job! Your current score = " + score);
} else {
  alert("Ohhh they let you out in public? Your current score = " + score);
}
//Question set 4
var guess4 = parseInt(prompt("How many weeks in an year?"));
if (guess4 === answer4) {
    score += 1;   // rather than score = score + 1
  alert("Check out Einstein over here! Your current score = " + score);
} else {
  alert("HASHTAG FAIL! Your current score = " + score);
}
//Question set 5
var guess5 = parseInt(prompt("How many years in an decade?"));
if (guess5 === answer5) {
    score += 1;   // rather than score = score + 1
  alert("MENSA MATERIAL! Your current score = " + score);
} else {
  alert("Bless your heart... Your current score = " + score);
}
//Final Score is...
document.write("Your score is a whopping " + score + "! Way to go?! ");

//Medal Ceremony
if (score === 5) {
  document.write ("You get a GOLD MEDAL!");
} else if (score === 3 || score === 4) {
  document.write ("You get a SILVER MEDAL!");
} else if (score === 1 || score === 2) {
  document.write ("You get a Bronze MEDAL!");
} else {
  document.write ("You get a participation sticker!");
}

Any thoughts? Keep in mind that I haven’t learned arrays, functions et. al… I’m really enjoying this code learning thing.