Days 28 ~ 32

We finally got the whole MVC stack under our belts, and in short order, took our week 6 test over server side concerns. I waited through the weekend with baited breath to hear back about the results and they came out well enough.

Now we have moved on to our group project. It's a bit of slow going, as we're fresh developers inheriting a project from other fresh developers, and we are touch on, for the first time, Authorization/ Authentication Log ins, integrating Angular into a MVC project, and Web API all at once. We've just been picking our way though the code so far and soaking up the new material as quick as can be.

We have a strong group and our goal is to complete the project we have been handed. I hope it goes as well as all that.

Days 26 and 27

Continuing with the .NET stack, getting familiar with databases and using a "look up" table, working with those interfaces and adapters...

Biggest leap in understanding was with parsing out the information presented in build error messages. Those red squiggly lines can give you a lot of answers once you get friendly with them The red squiggly lines are your friend!

Not sure if I'll learn more by spinning up a new project or fixing an old project. Should do both if I had the time.

Day 25

Friday we got further into working with databases, implementing CRUD (what and unfortunate acronym), using controllers and adapters, seeding our databases, basically adding further compartmentalization to our projects. 

Over the weekend I tried to spin up a couple new projects, modeled after what we worked on in class. I ran into a few issues that delayed my progress toward completion, but ended up teaching me a lot more about file dependencies. I don't have a finished product to bring to class but I have a few questions I think the answers to will help expand my understanding of Entity Framework.

One more week of instruction before we get to work on our group project. I wonder how prepared I'm going to feel by then. 

Days 23 and 24

I got back into the swing of things and have caught up with LINQ queries and SQL databases. I really like that kind of stuff, making use of what could be huge amounts of information, only limited by processing time, typing in those those magic spells that give you back what you want the way you want it. I don't know how long it would keep me engaged, but it'd be nice to just work with databases for a while.

Tonight I attended a talk at the Microsoft office by an "MVC Blackbelt". Most of the issues he addressed were beyond the scope of my experience, but at least I was familiar enough with .NET and the MVC to follow along a bit. I took a few notes. Maybe someday one of those things will come in handy.

Days 21 and 22

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I always wondered why I saw that used as default text. I thought it was just kind of a fallback convention like "Hello World". Turns out there's some logic behind it. I found that out here .

This week we started working with databases using SQL. I keep hearing how terrible SQL is to work with but I find the commands very intuitive and it's interesting how individual lines of code can be executed. 

I was excited to start integrating this with C# but my body gave out on me last night. I was too sick to make it to class and it sounds like it was a bad day to miss. I need to catch up on LINQ, Entity Framework, using Git Hub through Visual Studio, probably some other cool stuff. 

Still feeling cruddy but I guess I gotta show and take my brain pills tomorrow so I can get up to speed. 

Days 19 and 20

We've been covering Post and Get methods in C# the past couple days. While I recognize the importance of this, I've been finding it unsatisfying as we haven't covered using databases for memory persistence yet. So anything we create remains hypothetical. It may be soon apparent why this must be, but I kind of wish we covered databases first so the result of our code was more tangible. All in good time though.

We've also been doing challenges on CoderBytes.com. I see how it could be useful to an extent, but I find it kind of frustrating to try and write code by committee. I think it's more beneficial to those in the class that haven't covered some basic coding concepts yet, but I just keep seeing incompatible code being implemented for the sake of illustration and I feel like the most I can contribute is pointing out why something suggested wont work. Maybe I would like it better if we tackled the challenges individually and then presented our different approaches afterwards.  It's just a minor gripe though. I still learn a lot by watching others work through a problem.

Day 18

Ok, C# and Visual Studio's MVC clicked for me today. Clicked in a big way. In a "don't let the general public know how much easier it makes our job", kind of way.

Wow, we came home with an assignment which included what looked like a silly amount of classes, view models, controllers, and views to write up. Once I had it planned out, it felt like Visual Studio was writing all the code for me.

Very cool feeling to have a tool under your belt that helps you move mountains.