Resources for learning.

I am having a super busy week. I have a ton of things that I'm working on but have to work everyday and try to do homework so they have a long way to go. But I'm still having fun. Wanted to whip up this post really quick to let you all know that I created a small web page using Microsoft Expression Web 4 which I then opened and deployed to Windows Azure using Webmatrix 3. I could have gone through all of these things in this blog post, but you know, any chance I get to use </>'s I'd much rather do that. So yes, I created a page that has all of my favorite sites, and ones that I have just been following in general as of late, so that you can know some good places to read up on web technologies, .NET, general software development, legal news, reviews and unboxings, and a plethora of other great information from really great people. Learning is everything and utilizing the greatest tool we have - the internet - is so very important. Well have a great day I'm working on some pages and posts and trying to come up with something more interesting but gotta finish out the work week. Visit the site and you guys have a good one!


Check it out!

I still suck at blogging. I suck at Twitter .... and I still suck at programming. But still love my life :) Oh and my first'ish web page.

What a week. I've learned a lot. So lets at least get to some of it:

Coming from computer hardware and software maintenance, servers and networking, information security and administration, web development and software engineering has introduced a completely new world of technologies to immerse yourself in. It’s endless and presents tons of new concepts to learn and master. Being in the field of technology, period, requires an individual to constantly learn and be open to change. Nothing stays the same, there is everything to learn, and everything is a new idea. So of course that’s why it takes a while to get the hang of a new technology. It takes a while to learn how something works and then do it yourself. Which is really the majority of the motivation for myself to document this journey. That and of course I love making web pages and software. Even though this may be easier if I combine a VLOG with my pages. Because I can talk pretty well. Thankfully, I can write well too (IMO) So perhaps in the future. Well I hope everyone had a great Easter. Seeing my family truly makes me happy. I only live an hour away but still I feel like I see them only sparingly. Being in school and working is a 20 hour a day job (I include sleeping) so when I get a few hours I’ll see my friends and family. So anyway I have a new web page up. You can see that here. It is called My Web Tech and it is a .NET web page built with WebMatrix 3 and is hosted on the Windows Azure platform. WebMatrix is a very interesting tool that can be useful for beginners as well as seasoned developers. Even though I don’t see too many seasoned developers really being immersed with WebMatrix since the projects they would most likely be working on would already be implemented through Visual Studio or something with higher scale capability. But it is a Microsoft tool that does integrate with the .NET framework. The web page has jQuery, Bootstrap, and CSHTML components. It is ASP.NET. It is a fast and friendly way to get a page up quickly. It has the ability to implement hundreds of blogs and CMS like Wordpress and Umbraco. And you can have a quick site up and running within minutes or you can create an empty project and build something from scratch with PHP, ASP.NET, NODE.JS,SQL CE and more. It’s pretty awesome and free and you get a free trial with Microsoft Azure (I’m pretty sure that’s available) and you get up to 10 sites for free. Now the site I made has a xxx.azurewebsites.net extension. Like I said I just used it to whip up and deploy a site that can be used in conjunction with this blog post to keep track of more specific things I've learned. So this past week has been inspiring. I’m on a good track I think. I will every so often turn around and say “Why do I like this” or “Why am I doing this again?” "Why the rush to do this so quickly and obsessively?" and “I’m going to learn more about this in school later on … I’m sure I’ll learn this stuff eventually.”, “This is a hobby for the most part”. This line of thinking is really dangerous. I am driven to understand things that I didn't before and know how to take advantage of a chance to be able to solve a problem or contribute to a solution for someone. I want to work in this field. And if I'm serious about it then I will make it one of the most important things I do. It is fun. There is so much I don’t know. I want to go beyond what I thought I was capable of. I love internet technology. I love software. We are dependent. I was born the year that Hyper Text Markup Language was invented … and my head starts spinning to see where we've come in twenty three years. So this is the part of society I want to be involved with. To see how these things change our lives and improve our lives. Because I also care to understand how people work along with the devices they use and rely on everyday. I mean that makes sense right? I can't think of anything, in our age, more important than understanding both people and technology.  I want to spend the rest of my life behind a computer screen hopefully making a difference. It started as picking a major in college but this is what it has grown into. My comfort, my hobby, my career, my meaning. It feels good to have purpose. This is what I do. So that’s the reason for my education, my blog, my code, and hopefully my future employment as a web developer. So yes please go check out http://mywebtech.azurewebsites.net as there will be more sites and pages to come. Hopefully by next year I have a functioning portfolio. I know that I have projects coming my way not only from on my own but also in school. It’s going to be crazy being this immersed in C# and JavaScript and being used to doing things a certain way with a certain platform and framework for so long and then have to learn Java and PHP. I mean I somewhat have some control over that but I have to have another programming language in school for a sixteen week course. With what they’re offering I might as well learn some Java. I may not agree with it being used for several different reasons but the fact is that it’s a popular language and a popular tool in the development toolkit for many projects and companies. So I should learn how to read it at least. Because in 2014, the idea that I might encounter some Java in the wild … is quite high. Same with PHP. So yes….it’s Monday. Going back to work to help customers with their technical problems. Still learning and building and … I’m not sure how many people are going to read this huge book that I’ve posted, as this blog is a lot for me as well, but if you did thanks. I suck at blogging. I suck at programming. I suck at many things. But that’s where the drive to better yourself comes from so I’m fine with that. So here’s to a million blog posts and a million lines of code! 

Day 3 (ish) of my new commitment.

I feel like I have learned a lot in the past few days. I really must remember that it has only been a  few days before I reaffirmed to myself that I was serious about a career in development. I mean … I love working with technology. I love fixing and improving technology of all kinds. Right now I am currently a technician for AT&T and enjoy fixing cell phones and computers for our customers. And for the past few years I have been working my way towards a career in networking/systems administration. And while I’d love that … I mean like I said I love it all. I want to create things. I want to contribute something to a system that people use and be responsible for something that helps other. Programming can do that. It doesn’t matter if I’m working for a large company maintaining their ASP.NET or JAVA intranet tools. I mean it could be that …. Or working for a start up on a new app for mobile devices. Or just working with multiple clients to build web sites. Creation and innovation is something I know I want to be a part of. I know that its something that will continue to make me happy. Yes, money is a factor. I want the economic security that I need to take care of my family and development really does pay well. I’d be lying if I said I never thought about earning a living. But honestly it hasn’t been at the top of mind. Learning has. Learning and doing. I feel like today was a good weekend. I learned a lot. Coming from JavaScript, this been a new learning experience. C# is different. I mean they are very similar in many ways – like the syntax! The C# syntax is no problem coming from JavaScript. But really the OOP concepts are … near the same foundationally yes … but there are big differences in the way C# works with classes and JavaScript does not. I had to get the hang of creating classes and am currently studying the OOP concepts of inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, methods, partials … the basics. So yeah. Similarities and differences from JavaScript. There are things I really love about JavaScript and will continue to improve my JS skills throughout my career. I can’t wait to learn more about new JS frameworks like Ember, Knockout, Underscore etc., (I think those are frameworks ?) But anyway back to C#. My goal in the long run is the .NET platform. Well….short term … but long term at the same time. Because yes of course I plan to learn many more frameworks and languages … the world doesn’t revolve around Microsoft. (I think) But for now … .NET is where I’d like to stay and learn more. But after talking with a great role model and PIuralsight instructor – K. Scott Allen (odetocode.com) I have reminded myself that the foundations are important. Have to have strong JS skills before I can move on to advanced frameworks and I need to get the basics of C# and other .NET tools before I can throw out huge MVC applications. The first job I shoot for, I really wouldn’t be surprised, if it was just HTML/CSS and a little JS. (I’ll be ecstatic over anything web related!)  But yes I’m rambling. Blogging really is a good way to organize your thoughts! And as you can tell I have many of them. So yes. ... Heading on throughout the week I’m going to finish the Scott Allen C# 5.0 fundamentals course and finish reading my C# 5.0 pocket reference (while reading through the  much larger version C# 5.0 in a nutshell http://goo.gl/ozaqov). And I’m also watching a Microsoft Virtual Academy series on C# programming fundamentals which I have found to be a good recap on these subjects. It’s good to see as many people as possible talking on screen about coding and actually coding themselves! So yeah … Aside from basic data types, variables, objects, and classes I’ll tell you in the next blog post what I learned about later in the week. I was happy. I made a small console application today that contained data about all of the Game of Thrones books by George R.R. Martin (which I have yet to read) and it interacted with users by using the speech synthesis reference in the .NET library to implement methods that would read aloud text specific to which book the user wanted to know more about. You would make a selection and the voice would tell you a bit of info or prompt you to make another selection and there would actually be publication information displayed on the screen regarding the book you selected. So yeah just tinkering around. Well I have to get off of here and go to work. People need their stuff fixed!

Happy coding

Derek

First “true” day learning C# - April 12th, 2014.

weekends = "lots of code";

So why am I learning C#? Why did I not wait to “master” the front end side of things and be able to use every flavor of jQuery, prototype, Angular, Ember, and other CSS domains like SASS, LESS, and Bootstrap (which I love) more proficiently?

I don’t know. Because I’m eager. Learning how to put the application together on the front end is great and I’m going to continue always loving that and working with that but I need to strengthen the core of this framework. I want to dedicate this year to learning the .NET framework. Well regardless if I’m building a Single Page App, a WebForms project or a more advanced solution with MVC, I’m going to need to know at least the basics of C#. I have to know the logic for the backside of this framework. I also think learning this might help me with everything else I intend to learn. I have studied the basics of JavaScript and know that I will need to write in JavaScript again. Now in ASP.NET I can see myself needing to write a core function for a JS page by hand or needing to edit some existing code. But for the front end I have really focused on learning the basics of the JavaScript language and how to put objects and functions together. I have learned the basics of jQuery and know how to utilize my resources to find what I need. I am not a CSS master but that is something I will practice more. So yeah, I think I want to put the most energy in the underlying logic of this framework and get stronger with knowing the ends and outs of what seems to be such a powerful language. I don’t know if I’ll just be using simple controls in an application to add functionality with C#, if I’ll mess with Winforms and make some desktop utilities or just keep learning in the console for right now … but what I know is that with what I already know about JavaScript and HTML/CSS, I want to put a lot of time and energy on learning the C# programming language. I may never go into using it in depth for hours every day designing things on the operating system level … but this is .NET and I need to know it. But don’t worry … I plan on staying a front end junkie and always trying to get better with layout, design, and JS functionality.

Part 2:

Oh and to update this .... this is really going to be quite the year. Since I have decided to tackle these issues and do what I want to do ... I have also decided to stop running away from math. I have run away from math for so long now ... and it has caused me to graduate over a year late. I get scared, drop the course or even fail the course. I make the excuse that I don't have time because I'm working . ... well I'm learning to program. So it's about passion and the want to do something. Now don't get me wrong. Programming or not .. I'm not going to be a math enthusiast. I don't think I will love to do equations as hobbies. Now I know it could definitely help me with my programming .. but you get the point. This is something I need to get out of the way to finish my degree. Now more specifically; when I finish my math courses this summer I will then be doing what do you think....Programming! With everything I have taken the initiative to learn and do thus far I actually have to take all my programming courses for school. So not only will I be using C#, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, ASP.NET this year ... but also learning Java and SQL ... hell maybe even some PHP. On top of all of this of course I am earning a handful of new certifications for work and school as well. 

Yeah .... gonna be busy.

Derek