CS50x & a Raspberry Pi Art Project

Since my last blog post, I decided to finally try Harvard's Intro to Computer Science course (CS50) that is available to take for free through EdX. The course consists of 12 weeks of lectures, 9 problem sets and a final independent project.  Watching the lectures and working through the problem sets is a definite time commitment, especially as the coursework progresses it gets much more challenging.

During the past month I've been going through a very stressful period so I've found this course to be a great escape for me. I have thrown myself into the coursework and have been working intensely on getting through all 9 problem sets. I've learned C by solving problems using different sorting algorithms, different types of data structures, allocating memory, recovering 'lost' jpeg images from a data file, implementing a spellchecker and a web server ...all in C. I even wrote PHP for the first time to complete the last few assignments. It was nice to see that the things I'd learned as a Ruby on Rails dev were transferable when I was working in a unfamiliar language like PHP. To me, it made me feel like a real programmer. Though the language's syntax is different, the underlining principles and problem solving strategies are pretty universal. It's just really an adjustment to the syntax of the language. So I was able to jump into a PHP project, without any background in the language and get through the tasks relatively simply.

Last week, I finished all the problem sets, I just started on my final project. For this project, you have complete freedom to choose to write any kind of software that you want. I knew I wanted to do something artistic, interactive and with language(s) outside my comfort zone. I drew inspiration from a few places-- the current exhibit of Jean Tinguely's art at the Stedelijk Museum, an interest in learning about Raspberry Pis (and maker culture), and recent attendance at a React Native meetup.

My original idea was a Tinguely-inspired wall installation with EL wire, leds, motors that were connected to a raspberry pi that could be controlled/interacted remotely by a user with a mobile app. As I researched more about hardware and RPis, I soon felt overwhelmed by the hardware side of it - wiring, circuitry, power supply, soldering.

Since my focus is mainly on the software, I didn't want to get discouraged during my project by the hardware side of things. I want to setup myself for as much success as possible. So, I opted to go simpler for now and purchased a preassembled LED board with a square grid of 64 LEDS. This way, I can focus on the writing the software and getting my feet wet with hardware/RPi. Then, if it is a blast to work with, I can dive deeper into building my own hardware on future projects.

I will be using 2 pieces of hardware for this project, a Raspberry Pi 3 and UnicornHAT:

Raspberry Pi 3 w/ an AMAZING rainbow case

UnicornHAT 64-LED board

I still haven't received the hardware I ordered yet, but I've already started on the software infrastructure that is necessary to get the Raspberry Pi communicating with a remote native app or web browser. I've already gotten the RPi's software communicating with a server and receiving data from a React Native app using websockets. I am going to post much more frequently to detail how the build process is going and document what I'm up to.

This is one of the most intensive projects I've taken on by myself, since I will be writing code in multiple languages that I am not familiar with. It'll be the first time I'll work with hardware, write a native app, work with websockets, code in Python, etc etc. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

still here, learning and growing.

I've started writing this blog update many times over the past several months but always felt like it was inadequate, too long after the fact of doing something interesting, and I had just missed covering too much stuff over that time and it was too late to share it. So I ended up never publishing anything at all.  

My absence from the blog doesn't equal inactivity. Quite the opposite of that, actually. I'm still at my original & first dev job and coding every Monday through Friday and sometimes on the weekends. I go to tech meetups and even host my own events. Heck, I even co-organized and co-hosted a Stupid Hackathon in Amsterdam.

This year has been weird, stressful, anxious, exciting for both me as a human being and me as a programmer.

Here are the code-related highlights:

• I've regularly kept up hosting the Coffee & Code meetups I started with another awesome person in January. Every 2-3 weeks we meet up to work on code and generally support each other while drinking a few beers or coffee. It's usually full and regularly attended by a lot of folks. I've actually made some new friends through it...

• ...And with those friends I made through hosting the coffee & code meetups, we just organized and hosted a stupid hackathon (stupidhackathon.wtf) event. First one ever in the Netherlands? I think so. It was literally a hackathon devoted to developing the most useless and dumb ideas for apps/hardware. We scored some sponsors and hosted nearly 40 participants for an all-day hackathon last Saturday. We had 17 projects presented at the end of the day! Cool stuff. I even worked on a project at the event. We made a lightweight css library for CSS'ing like it's 1996 Geocities again ---> Geolize.css.

• Also... with those friends from Coffee & Code, we've started our own coding group. We felt our goals and mission no longer matched up with the local railsgirls organization we were previously affliated with. We not only want to get more women excited about coding, but also help them get jobs/internships with companies that are similarly enthusiastic as we are and dedicated to actually hiring them. We will host our coffee & code meetups through our new group & plan to soon host coding workshops and other events.

• In May, I went to my first RailsConf in the US. As a Ruby/Rails dev, I feel like it was taking a pilgrimage! Utterly amazing. Everyone should try to attend RailsConf at least once... cuz it's fun. and you learn stuff. I applied for and received an opportunity scholarship. I'm really grateful that I was chosen, otherwise there's no way I really could have afforded to go. This is probably the funnest thing I've done as a dev so far. It was my first conference experience. It was awesome to be a scholar and get paired up with a speaker as my guide. I got paired with the amazing Nadia Odunayo. It was really invigorating to go and see/meet some of my Ruby/tech heroes like Sarah Mei & Sandi Metz.  I think RailsConf is probably the highlight of this year as a dev. I even gave a lightning talk - it's my first talk at a conference (don't bother that it was only 5 minutes long)!

• I finished my 1 year job contract and signed a new, indefinite job contract at my current employer. In the Netherlands, this is what you want if you work a full-time job. It offers a lot of job security (or so I'm told).

• I've learned some ReactJS through the awesome ReactJS Program by Tyler McGinnis. Highly recommend it - there are really good video explanations in there. I feel like it has helped me understand JS fundamentals better as well as I worked through it. And the intro to ES6 makes me really excited to see the direction that JS is going in. ES6+ is making writing javascript actually kinda pleasant for me. I've actually even built some react components for the production rails project I work on at my job. ;-)

• I'm working through the FreeCodeCamp curriculum. Slowly. I'm trying to do the individual projects in ReactJS. I'm slow. But I try to work on it when I'm motivated and have the energy.

• I'm really looking forward to getting more skilled/confident/comfortable with javascript and ReactJS. I really believe that building up my JS skills is a great compliment to what I'm now capable of building in Ruby on Rails and the next logical step for me as a dev. 

• Next month, I'm attending Euruko with my colleague in Sofia, Bulgaria. Pretty excited to go to another Ruby conference after having such a stellar time at Railsconf. It wiill be even more awesome to share the experience with my colleague.

So, I'm still around... growing as a dev, figuring out interesting/frustrating problems, and trying to contribute to the local coding community positively. I'm still happy that I changed careers and I get to code for a living. 

More than anything, right now I'm trying to find a balance between the constant need to "always be learnin'" with also needing to be a real human being that takes rests and does other interesting things to keep my brain happy and keeps me a dynamic and interesting person and not a grumpy, dry code bot.