From Hardware to Software

Project 1, Iteration 1 wrap-up

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Another week down and I couldn’t be happier with the progress made.

When I planned out the project, I created “iterations” with 0 being just creating the app as a single page application and 4 being a finished product with tests, design, and logic. Iteration 0 was simple enough as with the help of hash routers, a single page application with 3 pages was formed. I even found resources explaining how to test routers using Jest and the React Testing Library, so I could complete that iteration.

Iteration 1 which I am currently on involves adding in the content and logic of the portfolio and hosting the website. The landing page was easy enough as it is just a short welcome with buttons that link to my social media. The project and contact pages have been the hardest part; partly because I tried to over-engineer the solution and partly because I wanted to make something interesting but user friendly.

For the projects page, I grabbed inspiration from dribbble for what would be a neat UX experience for the user. After getting stuck on the implementation for 2 days, I came up with a good middle ground, accordion style blocks. A photo and the title of the project which clicked would reveal below it the description and links to the project. While this was not the exact solution I had envisioned, this kept me sane and for longer description this was a better method then just flipping a card. While this still needs styling, the logic and tests are written which makes me happy.

For the contact page, I looked into creating a form with a react library at first which would send it off to my email address. Researching this way, it seemed to not be that easy or clean so I looked into an almost pure html solution next. I found 2 ways to do it, html on the front end and express.js on the backend or php on the backend. Since I had never used php, I chose the route of express.js and nodemailer. While the theory seems straightforward, I am currently at a roadblock as it was mentioned to POST to a page called send which isn’t created (in the walkthrough), I am lost how that is meant to work without a 404. So before I can wrap-up iteration 1, I need to look into more documentation to either solve my errors or to redesign the code in a better way.

Hosting was simple enough. After buying a domain from Google ( bradleycodes.dev ), I looked into hosting services with free SSL certification and chose Netlify which is what also hosts this blog. The hardest part has been setting up CI. After looking around and either trying GitHub’s workflows, I found the best solution for me would be Travis CI. It offers a completely online experience with a simple script and support for React with a Linux OS. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as I imagined as tests which pass locally are failing in Travis CI so I might need to optimize the script.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I will see you on the flip side!

Project 1, Developer Portfolio

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Where to begin?

In case I didn’t mention this on here already, my goal for 2020 is to work on at least 6 software projects in 12 months. I will also try to compete in coding competitions that I have the time for and continue to mentor a FRC robotics team (my life will be hectic but in a good way). The first project is to create a single page developer portfolio in ReactJS complete with functional and unit tests. There will also be some easter eggs added in to make it a unique build. :)

My approach is to create it in an agile manner with Minimal Viable Products and iterations. The testing will be a mix of Test Driven Development and tests created after implementation to make sure nothing is missed.

So far I have used React Routers to achieve a single page website and have learned how to test this functionality. This was accomplished using the React testing library mocking the router. This way of testing is somewhat similar to the tests I have done in C# but I learned I need to read and practice a lot more of JS testing if I want accurate tests that pass!

I have also added in buttons for my social media on the home page and created a basic contact form but only the front end. There have been some issues with the backend that is partly due to the application not being hosted as of yet.

If I can takeaway anything from the project so far, it is to look for the simple solution first. I have been testing out different ways to implement cards and my first idea was to do this with JS. While that works, it looked to be quite a bit as there was still html and css needed. Then I looked a bit more and realized it can be done with just html and css in a much easier way. I need to remember that this project isn’t to test my skill in JS but web development in general. That and always look for a simple solution to save myself the headache!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I will see you on the flip side!

I Needed Some Clojure

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

All puns aside, these past couple of weeks I have been diving into Clojure more than I have before.

Clojure, written by Rich Hickey, is a functional language which runs in the Java Virtual Machine and has a base in Lisp. While the language was introduced to me by a co-worker a long time ago as they hoped we would use it in a current work project, I didn’t really see a need in my life for it. That was until I was looking at some coding challenges which the less characters you used, the higher you were on the leaderboard. While Julia and JS are typically up there, Clojure for some matched the characters (and made more sense to me). Clojure also made sense for me to learn as it is a pure functional language which is what the book I am reading (last blog post) talks about.

So I dove into Clojure and so far I can only say good things about it. It is built in a way that it should be immutable data (though this can be corrupted for challenges) and the syntax while not similar to the langauges I knew before, was easy to pick up. While the functional part of the language has some drawbacks when looping through code and trying to use as little characters as possible, it has really made me wonder if I was doing it the best way.

Unfortunately, Googling problems isn’t always as helpful as it would be with a python solution but the subreddit is pretty active. But for me this has made it feel that much sweeter when I solve the problem without a stack overflow post as it feels like my problem solving skills are getting better.

While currently I just plan to skim the surface so I can relate it to the functional programming book I am reading, I have a project for task scheduling in mind for 2020 which seems the best solution would be to write in Clojure.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I will see you on the flip side!

Let's Try To Be Functional. Please!

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

While this blog comes before the one about redoing my website into a react application with multiple pages, the process actually started before it.

On a very long list of books I would love to read if I have the time, Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming seemed to stand out as one I should start now. With a little over a month left before I start computer science grad school, it would make sense to understand both the basics of object oriented programming as well as functional programming.

The book guides you through functional programming using Javascript examples with exercises to practice what was just learned. The first few chapters are an overview which I found easy enough to comprehend. But chapter 4 started the concepts that leverage functional programming (currying to start) which take a bit for me to understand.

I’m not sure if I was overcomplicating the solutions in my head or my past experience with functions needing the exact number of arguements that made this hard to grasp but after rereading a few times I think I got it. Besides the book, this post helped to piece the concept of currying in my mind.

While this upcoming week will be chaotic with Thanksgiving and the Clemson/Carolina football game, I am hoping I can go through another chapter and maybe even work on my personal website .

Thanks for reading and I’ll talk to you again soon!

Archive of first blog post

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

First published: 06-17-2019

This is a blog post from the webpage I used to have before this one. Before I fully deleted the old website I wanted to perserve the 1 blog post I made. Hope you enjoy!

Before I go into this blog post I would first like to say hello and thank you for stopping by. I know I’m not the only blog you will see out in the webs so I’m glad you chose to stop by.

During college I spend time not only doing engineering classes but I spent some time working as a frontend developer for an internship and a part time job at USC. During this time I learned quite a bit about front end development and thought about making a website but didn’t have the time to finish it. With the time now from graduating, I have set some time each night after work to continue and create a stable version of my personal website.

This blog will talk about my progress becoming a robotic engineer, things about graduate school and technical reports, things I learn about web development, and other topics such as life lessons with randomness sprinkled in. While some of the advice may only pertain to robotic engineering or engineering in general, (some in FRC as I mentor a team) some will be more general.

The idea is to post 3 times a week after work on some topics I already have in mind but I’m always open to suggestions (bradleybsf@gmail.com). Would you kindly join me on this adventure?

Progress? Slowly

Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

When I started my journey early September, I had big dreams of learning data science within 3 months. However, I didn’t really think about the fact that I just started to transition into a full time job with a project that requires blended hours to work internationally. Along with that, most of the project involves software development using new software that I hadn’t quite learned yet and so I would come home to get up to speed quickly.

So while I haven’t been following the path I planned exactly, I have learned quite a bit of core software development that will help me in my future. I have now realised 3 months with a full time engineering job may have been a little agressive so instead I am working towards a better understanding in 6 months time. I am still going to try and follow this guide (https://github.com/llSourcell/Learn_Data_Science_in_3_Months) and complete https://www.coursera.org/ courses but at a much slower pace for me to fully grasp it than mentioned in the guide.

So far I’ve looked at an overview of data science and started a course on R programming a few weeks ago which I will be starting up again this week, I had a big push at work so I came home tired most days. Let’s hope for the best!

Hello World

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

If the title didn’t give it completely away, this is my first blog post on my new blog! Writing once a week (either Saturday or Sunday) giving a quick recap of what I’ve done over the week and any essential learning points.

Before getting deep into this journey, it might be helpful if I give a little background about myself. In university, I started as a computer science major but after an internship and some higher level classes (admittedly before I should have), I switched my major to eventually Mechanical Engineering. The thought was that I wanted to be a more hands on engineer even possibly in roller coasters and I viewed computer science as either creating video games or fixing bugs all day like a previous internship. In hindsight, I should have done more research and learned that there are more options than that internship I was given but I was 19 at the time and I have a flaw of making rash decisions.

It wasn’t until the end of last summer I got into data analytics and this summer I realized I enjoyed higher math and programming again so I started to look to data science.