Day 1
Snap challenge
CSS challenge review
Capstone project work.
We’ve been working on our group capstone project a lot over the last week.
We’re using two data sources. One is provided as open data from the City of Albuquerque that has crime data. The second we purchased from the Bernalillo County Assessor’s office. It has property locations and assessed values.
The planning phase has presented us with some challenges trying to make sure the entire group is on the same page and that the scope of our project is achievable in the 7 weeks of bootcamp that we have left. We decided to start with a small section of our data- maybe a neighborhood- to eliminate some of the concerns of dealing with a massive amount of data and the challenges of mapping that.
I’m a bit disappointed because I thought it would be awesome to have a functional app with lots of data. On the flip side, I know that this is more realistic for what our group can accomplish in 7 weeks.
For now, I feel good about our plan for the project. The first two weeks of it are focused on determining scope, designing the database, making wireframes and writing Classes. We have a good chunk of that work done and a good direction for the rest of it.
Day 2
Unit Testing – Intro
Goal is to create tests to verify new code doesn’t break old code
We’ll be writing unit tests to test the code in the classes we’re writing.
Unit test – create variables to feed method & results you expect. Running test passes variables to method and checks to see if results are what you expect.
It seems simple, but it has a way of teasing out typos and other errors.
What if our code is connected to a database and we need to check the database results?
For each test:
- setUp() method to create test database & populate with test data
- test method
- tearDown() method
Bootcamp coverage rules
Every method in our classes needs to have a unit test… but we can just test our PDO methods because they use our getters, setters & constructor.
CNM bootcamp aims for 80% line coverage. Different places may have different bars.
Within each method, all blocks should be tested, but not necessarily every line.
We focus on positive unit testing. If we give it the right input, do we get the right thing back? We don’t have to give it bad data to see if it throws an exception. (Try-catch block- need to test the try, but not the catch.)
If & else: should test both paths.
If something is sequential, can test last result.
Yay Linux!
So I got my new (used) laptop to load Linux on a few days ago and ran into some issues trying to install Debian on it (it couldn’t get the wireless card to work, etc.). Then I was just swamped with bootcamp homework and chillin’ with the two-year-old. But tonight I was finally caught up on my homework and projects and had an hour after putting the little guy to bed.
I tried installing Ubuntu instead and didn’t have the same issues. (I say ‘I’, but really it took a lot of help and advice from my partner.)
Day 3
Bootstrap
A front-end library to make mobile-first development easier.
Day 4
I hit a deer
A deer ran out in front of my car this morning on the way to class and despite hitting the brakes, things did not go well. My car is totaled. I’m not one to believe in getting too attached to cars: the likelihood of something bad happening is fairly high. Still, it’s obnoxious to need to replace it while I’m in class 40 hours a week with homework and also a kid to take care of.
Also, I feel really, really awful about the deer.
Fire alarms
Post-deer, my partner drove me to class. Upon arrival, the fire alarm went off and it took them a long time to turn it off in our part of the building. So we all went downstairs to where the Java/Android Bootcamp meets and hung out in one of their unused rooms.
This led to an interesting off-the-cuff discussion about entrepreneurship, free-lancing, and salaries in the tech industry.
Day 5
Ticket burn-down
This morning included ticket burn-down for out group project. Basically getting instructor sign-off on the tasks we’ve been working on.
Women in tech day!
For our professional development Friday afternoon we had a couple of women come in to talk to us- a CIO and a high-up manager. It was interesting to hear their stories and I’m continuing to work on my list of places I may want to work (and also on my list of places I don’t want to work).
The weekend
The Linux saga
I finally got all of the programs and setup I needed to do the bootcamp work on my Linux pc. (It wasn’t really hard, just took having a little time to actually do it.) So I’ve switched to using my Linux computer instead. I figure it’s a good opportunity to get familiar with it.
Trial by fire is the phrase that comes to mind. I have no idea where that came from so I googled it and ended up reading a long and sad New Yorker article instead of finding out what I was looking for.
Bootsrap challenge
Also this weekend was time working on a project to create a site that looked like a mockup we were given. Bootstrap is a javascript and CSS library that is designed to make responsive websites. It’s a lot of fun and it has me wanting to create more sites.