Chris Kay's Flatiron Experience


The Curious Introvert

FRAMER-MOTION

According to the documentation, Framer is a design and prototyping tool. They offer an API for using Framer components and features, as well as a smaller API called Motion, which is an animation and gesture library. Framer and framer-motion are built to work with React, and can give otherwise static components a very polished and dynamic feel.


Inodes and Insufficient Space Errors

When I first started learning to code I was terrified of error messages. It didn’t help that I started out on a Windows machine. Using WSL and being very unfamiliar with Unix commands, there were definitely times when I had no clue what I was doing. That was fine for the most part, as long as learn open and learn submit worked, I didn’t have to worry or question much. As I moved through the program though I would feel the dread creep in on certain occasions when things didn’t go smoothly. A popup in VS Code related to my WSL plugin (everything seemed to work without the plugin, should I use it or not…wait…was I even using it before?), error messages trying to open or submit labs, issues connecting to GitHub, everything was confusing and scary. I was crazy jealous of my peers with Macs, who seemed to have a much easier time of things.


The Lexical Environment

One of the most difficult things for me when switching from coding in Ruby/Rails to Javascript was handling variables and understanding the scope chain. Everything seems more scattershot and temporary in Javascript. It might just be the inherent difficulty in trying to learn a new language or paradigm; I can certainly see that it happens in Ruby too, but it threw me for a loop in JS.


Pry Pry Again

Pry is a really useful tool for debugging and testing pieces of your applications. I am still very much a beginner when it comes to writing code, and one of the hardest adjustments for me to make while learning has been finding ways to test my code. In the beginning, sure, it was relatively straightforward. Open up IRB or jump into a REPL somewhere online, write some methods and see if the results were as expected. Rinse. Repeat.


A Lesson In Preparation

“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” -Henry David Thoreau