The Monthly Shipping Report (October and November 2015 Combined)
So in September I said I was going to be writing about what I do code wise every month. Part of the idea is to keep me motivated and accountable for writing this blog, but also help me learn new things.
The goal was to try and ship at least 1-2 projects a month. For October and November, life got in the way. A job change happened, so that took precedence over everything else.
October and November 2015 Monthly Shipping Report
Due to the job hunt, I ended up not really having time to focus on a coding side project, though I was writing code for coding samples I had to do. In December, I’m starting a new job, but I’m going to see if I can ship a side project like a Javascript game.
What Was Shipped
Here is what I shipped that is of note:
- leaderboard_spa – The leaderboard single page application was written using Angular on the front-end to handle client side routing and CRUD interactions. A Rails 4 API on the backend was used to store the data.
- A group project writing a tiny Goodreads application clone in Rails 4.
- I also managed to write some basic algorithms for a Coursera course I’m taking
What I Learned
As usual, the time flew by, but a lot of that was due to a job change and some other things that came up. The two takeaways for me for this month are that external deadlines are a good forcing function (e.g., writing a code sample as part of a job interview or group projects) and making a step-by-step checklist in Trello of things that can be done for a project in 25 minutes to an hour is a good way for me to make progress on a side project.
Upcoming
Right now, I want to keep learning JavaScript, Elixir, and finish a Coursera course.