Boot camp challenges and how I have adapted in the last few weeks

Finally, it was day one of boot camp and I was as excited as I could be.  I had spent the last six months or so learning as much as I could, honing my skills in anticipation of a potential invitation to @Andela’s boot camp. The invitation finally came and we completed our pre boot camp tasks at home in anticipation of boot camp resumption.

Boot camp started on a high, we reviewed the portions of work we had completed from home and the skills sessions were as interesting as I had imagined.  A vibrant and lively boot camp population made the skills sessions very enjoyable.

However, the story changed quite rapidly. Like the saying goes, change is the only constant thing in life. The location of the boot camp (Ikeja) was quite far from my residence (Lekki) and we were required to be on location by  8:30 AM. If you are familiar with Lagos, then you should know that this means planning an extra two to three hours for commute. I eventually had to change residence and temporarily reside in a location close to the boot camp location. Relocating came with its attendant challenges.

While the boot camp organizers provided for internet especially at the off-site boot camp locations, we still has issues with internet connectivity. I had to basically switch to an old SIM card to provide internet for myself.

Working with Test Driven Development (TDD) has also been a huge challenge for me. I was only introduced to this concept in boot camp and I fell in love with it and decided to utilize it fully. While this had made my code writing more focused and effective, it had meant a marked change to what I was used to and it required a lot of discipline for me to adapt and not revert to what I had been used to.

Learning and sticking to the expected GitHub workflow and documentation conventions @Andela was surprisingly quite challenging for me. While I fully understand the reasons why we need to follow conventions, learning and being required to implement them immediately tested my ability to adapt. The timelines for completing the projects also made pressure pile up. However, I was resolute in my commitment to stick to the required conventions and I eventually did so.

Perhaps my greatest challenge has been working with the new ECMAScript 6. I had just started learning javascript a couple of months ago with the old ES5 and we were required to switch to ECMAScript 6 even before I fully comprehended ES5. It was a huge demand on my ability and I had to quickly learn ECMA6 as fast as I could in order to adapt.

MY EXPERIENCE SO FAR IN ANDELA’S BOOT CAMP

Time has never felt so fast and yet so slow for me as the past couple of days have. It’s been four-days already at Andela’s boot camp, and I must confess, each day feels like a month in terms of the volume of learning. Paradoxically, each day also feels like a second in terms of the time required to utilize knowledge learnt and meet deliverables.

The pre-boot camp hype was as high as you could imagine; adrenaline running through my veins, wild thoughts running through my head and wild code running through my fingers (or maybe not).  I was as prepared as I could, hoping for the best and yet preparing for the worst. Tick tock, tick tock…gradually the day drew closer and anxiety grew higher. Finally, it was one day to boot camp; I packed my bags and travelled 300 KMs to attend boot camp.

The boot campers’ Slack group ensured that most participants were ‘virtually familiar’ before actually meeting in person. The rapport was great on Slack and this translated to warm introductions when we eventually met in person. The boot camp facilitators were warm and welcoming. In no time, the facilitators on-boarded us with the ground rules, some soft skills sessions and we were good to go.

We met with our LFAs (Learning Facilitator Assistants) on the very first day to receive feedback on the portion of work we had completed before resuming boot camp and it has been a sprint ever since. Feedback after feedback has been the order of the day for most boot campers. The already short days for implementing feedbacks are further shortened with daily article writing requirements and surveys. Twenty-four hours has never felt so short.

Notwithstanding the huge workload, the learning has been amazing. The tons of learning resources shared by boot campers on the Slack channel have made the boot camp feel like a mini-university. Besides the amazing resource sharing, implementing feedback received meant further learning. You have to learn to improve and correct/implement feedback received, and I must confess, there has been no shortage of learning. Four days already feels like four months in a university.

Perhaps my greatest joy so far in the boot camp has been proving to myself that I can learn and utilize whatever I have learnt as fast as I wish. I have learnt to use tools I have ignored for years within days. I have also met a couple of amazing people and I’m sure our friendship will persist far longer than boot camp. I have once again experienced the energy rush from doing what you love and I have also experienced the joy of fixing a nagging bug in your code. Yes, I have done all these within four days (better believe!).

As boot camp progresses and week 2 draws closer, there is no shortage of tasks in sight. The complexity of tasks also seems not to be getting easier. However, there is also no shortage of energy or passion to forge ahead!

My first encounter with the Command Line Interface (CLI)

Programmers and scientists staring at a black or white background screen, with just a cursor blinking and typing their way away into hysteria or melancholy had always been the stuff of pure science fiction to me.

I had been using a computer for over ten years and I could not remember ever having used that black-screen-with-white-cursor program let alone type myself into hysteria with it. I patiently waited for an opportunity to experience the hysteria those programmers and scientists had while using the mysterious program.

Well, as part of my preparations for @Andela’s BootCamp, my opportunity finally arrived to use the program. I found out the program was known as the Command Line Interface (CLI) and I was utterly disappointed. I was utterly disappointed at the misrepresentations hundreds of movies I had watched made about the hysteric states users of CLI got into. But I was not disappointed with the power and usefulness of the CLI.

The CLI is a text-based interface that is used to operate software and operating systems while allowing the user to respond to visual prompts by typing single commands into the interface and receiving a reply in the same way. (https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3337/command-line-interface-cli)

Perhaps the best way to understand the CLI is to contrast it with the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI is what you see when you open a typical Windows or Mac system; a collection of graphics, images, audio etc. that allows you to navigate the system with ease. The GUI allows you to perform actions such as opening a file by just clicking on a image of the file, delete a file by clicking on a text and much more by interfacing with pretty looking graphics. The CLI is quite the opposite. Imagine performing all those tasks by just typing a command into a cursor prompt; now that’s the CLI.

As tedious as it may sound (yea, the CLI can be quite tedious: you are not allowed to misspell a word, you obviously have to know the command before you can type it and so much more), the CLI is actually quite useful.

The CLI can actually be much more faster than using the GUI (provided you know the commands). The CLI uses much less memory and much less processing time. For much more complex tasks, the CLI can be scripted to automate tasks and the CLI is actually independent of the operating system. The CLI can also operate on reduced display hardware requirements e.g. a simple low-resolution monitor is sufficient. (https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-Command-Line-Interface)

(https://er.yuvayana.org/command-line-interface-application-advantages-disadvantages/)

Aside from its ability to make you look like a geek, perhaps the greatest advantage of the CLI is how low-level and yet sophisticated it is. For me, the CLI commands are like individual Lego™ blocks. They provide you unparalleled ability to build what you want.

How I bullied my mind into learning under pressure

The time allowed was crystal clear, “One week!”. I had been consuming API backends for years but I never thought to learn how to build one or read up on it. I had always thought to myself, why do I need to build an API when I could just use out of the thousands already available on the web or outsource the build process?

Finally, my nonchalance had caught up with me; I had just one week to build a well-tested API backend for a web application using the famous Node.js and Express framework. I also had to ensure that my code followed a specific style guide (Airbnb) and use Mocha, a popular testing framework. For developers with years of experience, this might look like a stroll in the park, but for newbies with just a few months of coding experience, this can be daunting. If the only thing you can do after installing Node.js is to type `Node –v` in your command line terminal to check the Node.js version; then closing your laptop to sleep can very much look like the best option.

Of course, the first instincts of a millennial kicked in — Internet search. My search query was simple enough- ‘How to build API backend’; but the results varied quite a lot in style, pattern, framework etc. I became more confused and fear kicked in. What if the little JavaScript I knew was not enough to implement an API backend? What if I am unable to implement it at all? What if I implement it but followed a wrong tutorial and did it in a completely wrong way? What if after what if!

But one thing was absolutely certain: I was determined to do whatever it took to become a fellow at the prestigious Andela. I could not give up now. I would not let fear and a fixed mindset stall my progress. I knew too much about Carol Dweck’s amazing work on mindsets to fall victim of a fixed mindset. It was yet another challenge for me to demonstrate to myself that my mind was the only obstacle between unimaginable growth and me.

There was no time to waste, the time was short and the requirement was clear. This was my first encounter with using the required frameworks and building an API so I had to start from scratch. Tutorial after tutorial, video after video, one blog post after another, I kept on reading, watching and learning. After all, no one has ever been reported to pass away from information overload. Learning had never felt so laborious.

After close to two days of non-stop self-learning, it all began to make sense. Our minds just have a funny way of making things look difficult out of fear. The process became clearer and easier after running through tens of tutorials. And when I eventually opened up the command line terminal and started typing away the code, sure I made a lot of mistakes, but then every mistake meant more reading and more learning — an opportunity to grow.

Then, I reflected on the state of mind I started from, I was afraid to even think about the challenge or open up the command line terminal. But now, I was happy with what I had learned and how far I had come with building the API. I was even happier when I was able to help my peers and point them in the right direction from my little experience.

I realized my mind was afraid to learn at the beginning, for fear of being limited in capacity, but I had successfully bullied my mind into learning even under pressure.

It's SAP Insider HANA 2016 Conference! Feb. 16-19, 2016. Please pay for my ticket? *Sad face*

Next week is HANA week!

So lately my interest in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs) has skyrocketed, I even dream about it these days!

Enterprise Resource Planning software giant, SAP (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing) in collaboration with SAPinsider is hosting the Insider HANA 2016 conference from 16-19 February 2016 in Wynn Las Vegas.

The conference is an opportunity to showcase the latest SAP HANA product capabilities and hear from lots of experts from SAP, partners and LIVE SAP HANA customers.

A number of SAP experts are billed to anchor sessions at the event. Experts from top consulting firms Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture, Comerit etc. are scheduled to anchor sessions.

See you there! (If I get money for my ticket!)

Facebook.org: Which side of the argument are you on?

Facebook.org: to stay or to go?

Update 09-Feb-16: India stands by net neutrality! Prohibits service providers from charging discriminatory prices for Internet services even if it is free, effectively banning Facebook internet.org.

It's one of those arguments I just love listening to. You really can't help but to see sense in both sides' arguments.

Background

August 20 2013, Facebook announced it's Internet.org project. The goal was/is simple: to connect the world (through the internet of course!). First step was to provide the world's poorest with free access to a collection of websites and applications through partnerships with telecommunications companies.
Noble, right? I mean who would oppose free access to the internet?

Netflix comes to Nigeria: What's all the fuss about?

At the prestigious Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2016, Netflix CEO and co-founder, Reed Hastings, made the much anticipated and yet surprising announcement: Netflix was going live in 130 countries instantaneously. An elated Hastings reeled out a list of countries, including Nigeria, in which Netflix was being switch on. Hastings chronicled the goal of Netflix in this excerpt carried on Netflix’s website: “Today you are witnessing the birth of a new global Internet TV network. With this launch, consumers around the world -- from Singapore to St. Petersburg, from San Francisco to Sao Paulo -- will be able to enjoy TV shows and movies simultaneously -- no more waiting. With the help of the Internet, we are putting power in consumers’ hands to watch whenever, wherever and on whatever device.”

Netflix, established in 1997, is an American company that delivers media (TV shows, movies) on demand to subscribers via internet. Netflix also rents out DVDs and Blu-ray disks via mail. As of October 2015, Netflix reported 69.17 million subscribers worldwide, including more than 43 million in the US. Netflix reported revenues of US$ 5.50 billion for 2014 financial year.