My experience working on Andela's cycle 10 challenge one and two
Tags: andela, node
Published: 2019-08-29 15:28:04

Have you ever done any Andela developer challenge? maybe you have done or not but I am going to share my experience working on Andela developer challenge. 

First of all, I have started my application in June in Andele Kigali cycle 10. Before getting to boot camp step, I have passed three challenges. My first challenge was about making Tippy calculator and it was about HTML, CSS, and javaScript(es6). The second challenge was a qualified test which covers programming questions and multiple-choice questions about general computer science. The last was code defense question and interview, and all the above steps, I have passed them.
 
Andela developer challenge was called free mentors. By working on this project, I have gained more experience than before. On challenge, one was about creating a user interface using HTML, CSS, and javaScript. In this challenge, I have learned more things such as creating a good user interface using CSS grids and flexbox as modern CSS kinds of stuff. In this challenge, I have found many things, that I don't know before and I was supposed to learn them so that I will be able to apply them in the challenge. By experience this I have realized that nothing impossible, the problem is how are you passionate and how you are committed to pieces of stuff you are working on. In addition to this, I have learned how to create a user interface by considering user experience.

Not only creating user interface but also I have learned using git version control, where I became familiar git workflow, git naming conversion. In addition, I have learned how to write good commit message and good pull request comment. In this challenge, every feature should have its own branch and after merged to develop branch. Before using this tool, I took it like its difficult but after using it in this challenge I have become a friend of it since it is an essential tool which can be used by every developer.

Not only above experience but also I got an experience on using project management tool. In this challenge, I have used pivot tracker project management tool, in this tools, we have to break up modules into a small task that should be accomplished, every feature should have its own story and a story should explain how a feature should be implemented.  Through this challenge, I have learned to write a good user story that makes the easy implementation of my features. 

Challenge two was about creatin API(application programming interface) specified in challenge. In this challenge, I learned too many things about how to create API  that can be consumed. This challenge has helped to understand how web services work. In this challenge, I really understood, writing API and how to test them using mocha as the testing framework and chai as an assertion library and chai-Http as a testing server. Also, I have learned how to use Travis continuous integration, how to add code coveralls GitHub repository, and to add code climate badge to Github repository. In addition, I have learned to host website to Heroku.

Briefly, working on Andela Kigali cycle 10 challenge one and two helped me to improve my knowledge and experience on working on user interface and user experience, writing API and their test and using more important tools like version control with git and pivot tracker project management tool.