Coding Bootcamp or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Code

As many of you may know, I recently quit my job of 5+ years to start down the career path of “Software Developer” at Nashville Software School. I can’t explain how difficult yet rewarding it’s been. I’ve learned so much at times it boggles my mind a bit.

A key factor in making the most out of a coding boot camp is “A.B.C.” as our fearless leader constantly tells us. Always Be Coding. After a long day at the fire hydrant of information they have you drink from, coming home and following up on what you learned with related exercises, videos and/or personal projects is a great way to cement all the things you’re learning. I can’t say I’ve done 16 hours everyday, but I’ve definitely put in a great deal of time and effort, and I am really proud of my progress.

The Nashville Developer community is fantastic, by the way. There are meet ups almost nightly, which make finding new contacts, friends, and opportunities so much easier. The fact that everyone is overly welcoming and helpful is such a great feeling.

While at NSS, I also got rather good at Ping Pong, but I soon learned at the Nashville Ping Pong meetup that I still had MUCH to learn. While my multiple defeats were rather humbling, each loss was met with “good game” and/or some spot on pointers for me to try from my friendly opponents.

I have two whole weeks left and I’m so excited to get out there and put everything I’ve learned to use. I feel like I had a longer than usual stay in the NSS coined “Valley of Despair,” but with such a great group of classmates, teachers, and staff helping me along the way, I’ve definitely climbed back up to sea level and am currently looking around for mountains to climb.

I will close this post by asking any of you that may be in need of a Junior Developer in the near future to come check out Cohort 14’s Demo Day at NSS on November 4th. We’ll be showcasing our Front End and Back End Capstones along with other projects we’ve been working on, and would love to have you as a visitor!

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Cohort 14 Demo Day

November 4, 2016
10am – 3pm

Nashville Software School
500 Interstate Blvd S, Suite 300
Nashville, TN 37210

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If you’re interested in what I’ve been up to specifically:
https://github.com/iamericanartist
https://iamericanartist.github.io
https://ericdentonux.wordpress.com/

I Youtubed.

My UX prototype walkthrough

I am wrapping up my UX & UI class at Nashville Software School, and as part of my portfolio/presentation I made a few videos of my low fidelity prototype for my “solution” to an issue close to a family friends heart: easier access to accessible seating tickets. I am calling the add-on “AccessAble” and what it aims to do is to minimize the need to call in to ticket providers to get handicap/accessible seating and to provide the same all digital sales track for this community of people.

I’ll be elaborating on this later on here, so I’ll leave it at that, but I do believe that this functionality could really be a great service to these folks.

Here’s the regular speed version if you are curious. I also made a vertical version for the mobile phone people out there. 😉

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.