Week 5 and I have reached the age of confusion.
I'll get to that in a moment but first I want to say that I retook the Red Belt exam yesterday and I did even worse than the first attempt. It wasn't that the task was difficult, it was actually a lost easier this time, but more so that I didn't have enough time. I spent half the time doing validations and database design that I didn't have enough time to build the profile page. By the time I had half-an-hour left I started to panic and made some terrible mistakes with further designs and eventually I just turned it in incomplete and messy minutes before the deadline. The instructor said that I'll have another chance to take it on Friday. This time I decided to get a little creative. There are only a limited number of variations of the test that could be given, so I asked one of my classmates to give me the instructions for his test so I could do it in advance. This might be considered cheating except instead of looking up answers to the exam I'm giving myself extra time to complete it. I have no problem being tested on my performance, I just have a problem with the time pressure.
So back on topic, today marks the beginning of the e-commerce project, a weeklong project that will evaluate everything we have learned from the LAMP stack. As the name hints at, this week we are going to build an e-commerce site using CodeIgniter, jQuery, Bootstrap, and Ajax/API's that, at the very least, processes credit card transactions. The first three features are easy enough to contemplate but the real problem involves using Ajax and API's. Ajax and API's are designed to make our sites dynamic by providing real-life information without having to rewrite code and while the concept is easy to grasp coding it is another issue. I've only covered the basics and don't really understand how we apply commonly used API's from Google Maps or Uber.
I got in my group with three other classmates and we agreed to create a project that collects recipe ingredients and sends an order request to a local market and has it deliver to the user's home by a certain time. We'll be using at least five different types of API's that includes Stripe's for payment and Yummly's for listing of ingredients.
I'll do my part in the project but without a clear understanding of API's and Ajax I fear I'll be of very little use to the guys. I started to get that feeling even before the topic of API's were covered. We started the project off by discussing the database design. CB had already designed a database that looked well planned but then there was a discussion about if his database was too complicated than the site needed. A couple of hours passed and I lost touch on what they were talking about and I just tried not to fall asleep. Boy did I feel useless.
We finally got to coding and I was awake for that. After setting up the shared repository on Github we distributed out work for the night. The first step is to set up the front-end pages and we were each given a few pages to create by the end of the night. CB spent the night researching the API's we'll be using. If this were brain surgery I'm the guy who cuts open the skull and he's the guy who's going to go in there and rewire the brain.
It's getting late and I'm once again feeling defeated. Just when I think I got coding down it turns out there's another entity I need to conquer.
On a bright note VT's team won the hackathon last weekend. The prize is a free course from Coding Dojo which means he could potentially be hanging around America one month longer. He's an awesome guy.
The Dojo was very light today because the senior class graduated last Friday. Next week a new class will begin and the place will be filled up with liveliness. I wouldn't mind that on account that we'll be moving from LAMP to MEAN stack. I am getting a little tired of LAMP. I've been coding LAMP material nonstop for almost two months and my fingers can't take anymore dollar-sign variables and form-validations. I hear the frameworks in MEAN and Rails are going to be way more automated which will expedite everything. Thank you!
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