One of the challenges I had recently was how to apply my understanding of the straight Node implementation of a server (versus using Express) and the use of the jQuery ajax to make requests to the server. I knew that the ‘endpoint’ of both of them had to match up with each other, but in working with my pair, we had a hard time figuring out how to do it. After a lot of review of various resources on these two subjects, we were able to apply what was needed to get a client and server ‘talking’ to each other. On the client side, a jQuery ajax request looks something like this:
A big challenge for me was the part in the week 3 self assessment that asked for an identification of the time complexity for each of the functions listed. I had thought I understood the topic, but was surprised that a few of them were not as intuitive as I thought. Compounding the stress was that this was 1 of 3 parts to the assessment, so time was literally a factor.
I had made it past the first interview and was scheduled for the second. In the email with the confirmation was the link to the directions for the company’s candidate homework. At first I was thinking, “How am I going to do this in just a few days?” I guess I took my time on other projects before so this was a new concept. My major projects during my time at Flatiron School took me anywhere from a week to a month, so I definitely had a higher anxiety level seeing 3-4 days as the time-line. But as I read the requirements my mind started to envision what I needed to do and how I should start. Once that happened, I was programming like a crazy woman. As I worked through the different issues I came across, I was reminded why I wanted to go on this journey in the first place. It was frustrating one minute and exciting the next. Not any dull moments at all and challenging to solve the different problems. Especially those involving the use of Angular. Since I was just starting to learn Angular in the last few weeks, I was in a steep learning curve, but I wanted to do it because it is one of the frameworks this particular company uses. The best way to learn these things is to do them yourself and work your way through. I learned that I remembered a lot more than I thought I did and I was able to put together an Angular application that reads from an API and displays the information. I finished up the day after the interview and even had time to do the bonus that they included and incorporate Bootstrap with my own CSS as well. So now I know that I can roll out an app quickly if needed and work under pressure. This was a great experience and I ended up with another project for my portfolio.
As a Flatiron Student, I was expected to blog about different topics as I was going through the curriculum. This process helps to solidify concepts that you might be unsure about and helps others that read the posts as well. The best thing is it is set up as a seamless process. There is a blog dashboard under Learn log in that allows you to type into an editor and submit a post with very little knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes.
When I was working on my final project for Flatiron, I could just barely understand how the redux store was supposed to work. There were several resources and videos that I reviewed, but it was when I was manipulating the different parts or slices of the store that I completely understood. Each part of my redux store is manipulated using the applicable reducer. It is a separation of concerns, so the medications reducer only deals with manipulating the medications, the reviews reducer only deals with the reviews, and so on. Once I understood that, I was able to write the various cases in the switch statements a lot easier. Here is my store: