My Software Engineering Bootcamp Journey (Series three)

Welcome back to my Software Engineering Bootcamp journey series where I am documenting my weekly learning activities, this is the third post in the series, fasten your seat bet as you are in for an interesting read.

In my last post, I wrote about how I completed the Havard CS50 course and did all the problem sets, I learned a great skill from completing the CS50 course which is having the ability to pick up any programming language faster and run effectively with it.

We were assigned tech stacks last week and I was assigned the Java stack which I am loving already, I actually wanted node.js because of my earlier background with Javascript, but as I mentioned above, I now believe I can easily take on any programming language given to me and be good at it.

On our next task, we were shared into groups with each team having four members and expected to come up with a full-stack demo project based on the knowledge we have acquired from completing the Havard CS50 course and we had three days to come up with a demo project and make a presentation.

So back to work, my group actually came up with the idea of building a tech forum for software developers which we titled DECANATION to have features like:

1. Stack forum tabs for various stacks
2. Chat room
3. Search bar
4. Learning resources tab
5. Community forum
6. Webinar forum.
7. Job portal
8. Register/Login validation

And these were the technologies we used to build the project demo:

i. HTML ii. CSS iii. JavaScript iv. Bootstrap v. Python (Flask) vi. SQL

For me working with team members gave me the company work kind of collaboration environment where you are made to meet on a regular basis, plan, disagree to agree, and deliberate with your team members on the project implementation as you have to brainstorm on different ideas on how to bring the project into life while also trying to meet up with the project deadline.

Part of my assignment for the project was to work on the front-end using HTML, CSS, and Javascript as well as the bootstrap framework, I also did work a bit on the back-end using flask to route the HTML files with the server.

After spending days and nights we were able to come up with a demo project with all the features; like a stack tech tab that has a list of node.js, java, python, .net, and golang, the idea is for each stack to have like a dedicated channel where they can create and post a thread that is specifically related to that stack.

The project also has a job portal that is dedicated to techies who are looking for tech jobs, they can go to the portal and look upon available job offers, there are also related job topics like CV writing, interview tips, etc.

There is also a learning resource tab where both aspiring and experienced engineers can go get up-to-date free online resources they can use to both begin and keep updating their journey into software engineering/development, there is also a mini chat room for tech networking.

although the project is not to perfection yet, given the short time frame we had to turn it in, I believed we worked our ass off to come up with a demo that is presentable, next is present it to the tech lead for defencefingers crossed.

Here is a demo link to a brief walkthrough of the web app we build given the time limit my team and I had %[loom.com/share/42807716b14747f9b38ce8510446.. the team had agreed to set aside a day each week to keep working on the project and make it better as we go through the Bootcamp and build on our learning process, our end goal is to have it deploy to end-users before the end of the Bootcamp.

Lastly, for the week we also did a git exercise that helps you learn the various git command line from the terminal on how to open a file directly in the terminal, stage and commit a file, merge conflict file, change branch history, fix typos, rebase, etc.

Lest I forget we are also having our weekly Agile workshop where we learn how to effectively operate in the work environment in terms of communication, punctuality, teamwork, resourcefulness, and be the best version of ourselves as a software engineer/developer wherever we find ourselves.

Okay fams, that is all for this series, until my next post, keep believing in your ability.

And just like Sir Arthur C. Clarke says - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic."