Let's have a cup of tea ☕, catch up and I'll tell you what I've learnt so far now that I'm halfway through the Technigo boot camp journey. The last 13 weeks have been a rollercoaster to say the least, with a multitude of emotions experienced, a mass of knowledge learnt and several different projects done and dusted.
I and my fellow boot campers have been walking the path together and started off by learning some of the foundations of frontend development from HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript to code reviews, pair and mob programming, stand-up's, demo's and retros. We've learnt about the difference between agile and waterfall methodologies in programming and how a dev team works. The list goes on …
And what a great job we've done so far 💥 So just as we are warming up we're now entering the world of React. React, a JavaScript library that makes it simpler for developers to create interactive user interfaces, is, so far, less scarier than I imagined it would be. I find React to be a nifty framework, easier to navigate through and manage compared to the long pages of HTML, CSS and JavaScript that we learnt in the first weeks of the boot camp. Of course learning these fundamental foundations were truly invaluable and has set us up to be able to enter the world of React much easier.
So to celebrate 🎉 the halfway point I want to share with you the 5 favourite things I've learnt to date on my frontend developer journey:
1. React components
I love creating these bite sized components of reusable code. Like little building blocks of JavaScript and JSX (aka JavaScript HTML 😜) that you can insert into your page and pass data between different components using props. Love props too!
2. React useState
Another piece of React wonderfulness! A React hook that can store different kinds of data types inside a function component. It is a powerful tool and thus far we've been using it to store data from an API fetch and change the state when the user clicks a button. I think that there is much more for us to learn when it comes to useState so I'm excited!
3. API's - Application programming interface
We've been working with API's on the majority of our projects thus far in the boot camp. At first they were a bit tricky. Understanding how to read them, is it an array, an object or an array of objects and how to write the path 😜 But also the idea of asynchronous JavaScript operations. Which are used to allow the fetch to be done without blocking the page from being viewed. After a bit of practice I'm starting to get the hang of them and really enjoy working with them, especially when you can fetch data from API's that are fun!
4. Doing stand up's, demos and retros
When you first start out with something totally new it's a bit daunting at first to work with others and share your knowledge. I've always been a bit shy working in teams as I'm conscious that I'll not be on the same level as others or be able to keep up with the pace. But since I started on the boot camp we've been doing stand up's, demo's and retros. These moments, when we have to share, explain and reflect in our teams, has been really insightful. It has given me a safe space to practice explaining my code, share my ideas and also get feedback from my fellow developers. And it's also given me the opportunity to hear how others approach the same task, understand how they see the code and help them if they're struggling. Giving us all the opportunity to develop and grow as frontend pros 💥
5. Getting to grips with flex-box and responsiveness
It seems like an age ago when I was grappling with the idea of flex-box and responsive web-design. Now after 13 weeks it feels like second nature. The first project we were given was to create a responsive news website for mobile, tablet and desktop devices. The task was daunting and rightly so. I had to start thinking about the screen size, flex-direction, how to make flex-boxes fit with margin and padding (thank goodness for box-sizing!) and in percentages based on parent size and screen size. Some valuable lessons have been learnt and I'm sure that I have a lot still to learn in terms of flex-box. But I can now say that I really enjoy working with flex-box and once you know it you can quickly transform webpages with wonderfully flexible components!
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