In development we need to store our information somewhere and have ways to access that information. The most common way to do this is SQL or Structured Query Language. As it’s name suggests, SQL is only a language and we need a physical database to store and access our data. Early into my development career I have been introduced to relational databases such as PostgreSQL. Relational Databases are comprised of tables and store assumptions about data being related to another piece of data. This blog will be an introduction to NoSQL databases and what they can offer.
What is a…
Object-oriented programming (or as I will be referring to “OOP”) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of objects. Objects can contain attributes or properties and methods. The most popular OOP Languages are class-based, meaning that objects are instances of classes.
Common OOP Languages
Objects
The introduction of objects built on structures, storing different primitive types together. OOP offered creating and holding methods for these types. Objects are instances of a class while classes are a template for an object. …
Control Flow in programming is defined as the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. When writing our programs we want to be able to adjust the flow of the program based on conditions we set to avoid the code to be executed top to bottom.
In previous blogs in this series we talked about if else statements and conditionals. There are more powerful and helpful statements we can use to control flow in Java. …
When I first started programming last year in 2020 I was so focused on what languages to learn and what applications could look like. While technologies and user experiences are critical to applications being developed, I found out that there is a bigger picture that is hidden behind shinier toys. What most developers know that beginners don’t know is that one of the most important pieces of this pie is problem solving.
There is a reason why many companies do some sort of coding challenge during the interview. companies need many problems solved quickly and more importantly efficiently. …
While I was learning React while in The Flatiron School’s Software Engineering bootcamp I learned about creating components by using class components only. We learned about some lifecycle methods in general and state was to be managed with a constructor. Once we were encouraged to check out functional components and useState to manage our state I enjoyed the look and feel of this style of React.
Using functional components and useState amongst the other react Hooks make the code look much cleaner and easier to understand. I have been using useState and useEffect in my recent projects and I have…
Keywords
There are over 50 Java keywords that have reserved meanings in the language. This is important to know as you cannot name variables the dame as a reserved keyword.
Some Java Keywords used so far in this blog series:
// you cannot do something like this
int int = 3;
int void = 25;
Control Flow and If Statement Review
valid if statement syntax review
int highestNum = 10;
int newNum = 11;if (newNum > highestNum){
System.out.println("you are higher than the highest number");
System.out.println("congrats");
}
…
Learning Java so far has been an interesting process after learning other programming languages. I have studied the contents of episodes 1 and 2 for hours and only have down data types. I was impressed and shocked how many notes could be taken for every data type as opposed to learning Ruby and Javascript were pretty simple. Continuing my third week of this it is time to learn about Javas take on operators and related topics.
Operators
Operators are special symbols that perform specific actions on operands then return a result. Operands are any object being manipulated by the operator…
In the last “episode”, I was able to set up an environment and start a new adventure in learning Java. I have barely accomplished anything besides writing some variables and print to the terminal. The important thing is that in part 1 I was able to embark on a new learning experience and prove to myself and employers that continued learning is something that is to be expected. …
To learn a new skill or language with no incentive is hard. A majority of people won’t spend their scarce free time to learn something that they aren’t being paid for. Others will not spend their money on books or resources to invest into themselves to achieve their goals. If you are reading this blog series as a employer I hope to display an amount of grit and commitment to becoming an experience software engineer and improving my skills to benefit a company and it’s users. If a developer stumbles across this blog I hope they become motivated enough to…
Social Media has become so prevalent in people’s everyday life. Most of these sites have some kind of relationship with users that creates the “social” aspect. Facebook uses friends, Twitter and Instagram is followers, LinkedIn uses connections. While I was working on my latest project for a friend I have come across the need to have a “friendship” feature.
Normally, in a many-to-many relationship we have a join table that connects two different models. Self-Referential in this context means that we want to create a many-to-many relationship between a table and itself. …
Student at The Flatiron School in Washington DC