Booting Up: Bootcamp Week 8 - Frameworks, OOP, Projects
Tags: javascript, bootcamp, beginners, codenewbie
Published: 2019-12-02 04:58:21

#Another Week!

I'm reaching the end of week eight of our coding bootcamp (7 more weeks until I'm really on the hook for finding a job)!

If you'd like to read up on Week 9, click [here](https://dev.to/shawnhuangfernandes/booting-up-bootcamp-week-9-project-week-teamwork-1g0d/edit).

This week ended early because of Thanksgiving, and we did not have class on Thursday or Friday. We DID, however, **have our code challenge, which I passed, yay**! 

Our coding challenge had us writing Javascript to implement some EventListening on buttons and make some get/post requests to a back-end server (which was provided). I've been studying pretty hard, so I felt pretty comfortable going through it. My only feedback from my instructors was that I actually over-commented my code!

##What I've Learned Up Until Now

Just as a recap of my current competencies:

1) I learned programming basics through Ruby, such as variables, objects, methods, functions, classes and more. (**Ruby**)
2) We learned how to create programs that persisted data to databases using SQLite3. (**Ruby, SQLite3**)
3) I began turning my programs into static web applications that communicated to the web through a  framework called Ruby on Rails that worked on top of an underlying framework called Rack. (**Ruby, Rails, SQLite3, HTML**)
4) We moved into dynamic web development by learning Javascript fundamentals and how Javascript helps us create a dynamic "front end" to our web applications. (**Javascript**).

So, right now, in my tool belt I have an understanding of:
- Interacting with a database through Ruby to persist data
- Using Ruby on Rails to handle HTML requests to interact with a web server
- Creating dynamic pages through Javascript/CSS/HTML

##Tying It All Together
Flatiron's curriculum is meant to turn its students into full stack developers. At this point **we now have the tools to make a full stack web application**.

Web applications have a **front-end** (what the user interacts with through a client) and a **back-end** (data-handling by the server). 

We will be using **Ruby on Rails as our back-end** and **Javascript/CSS/HTML as our front-end**.

##Cool Things I Learned
Javascript has been around for a while, and designing pages with it is really fun! I never realized how many Javascript frameworks are out there if you want to do...well, anything. One of my favorite ones so far is [Phaser3](https://phaser.io/phaser3): a javascript game engine! When I have a spare weekend or two I'd love to play around with it!

I also learned love coming up with models and abstractions (back-end stuff), but I also didn't realize how much I love trying to make web pages look inviting and interesting. There are so many helpful tools out there like [Semantic UI](https://semantic-ui.com/), [PixelJS](https://www.pixijs.com/), and [p5](https://p5js.org/) that I can't wait to dive into.

Side Note: I talked with a UX/UI people at a local coffee shop near my house. She was telling me of the importance of not only designing your website, but planning before your design. This is mostly what UX/UI people do, but I would love to learn more about their work, just to gain more perspective on that (it might really help with our projects). I got to see her website, which made me realize that **I should make my own portfolio website**! Her name is [Tomomi Matsuzaki](https://tomomim.com/#about) and I thought it might be cool to put her portfolio website here!

##What's next?
Week 9 is Project Week, and although my home is being remodeled, I've been brainstorming non-stop on creative, challenging ideas that might stretch my  devskills. I'll be sure to dive into my project next week! 

Stay tuned!

Good luck with your own endeavors!
Shawn