Chrome Extensions and a Return to Meetups!

Well, I missed my "blog post a month" by a week or so, but I finally got an idea for a blog post! A few weeks ago, I finally made it back to Arlington Ruby (as a part of me trying VERY hard to start going back to meetups and getting re-acquainted with the community I love so much) and learned about making chrome extension from Casey Watts. Nope, it has nothing to do with Ruby but it was really interesting to learn about. There were two components of this presentation that I enjoyed. The first was the actual technical content of learning how to do a chrome extension and the second was the presenter's teaching methodology.

Let's start with the technical content. Did you know that making chrome extensions is super easy?! In about 30 minutes, we already created like 3 chrome extensions. There are 2 things we learned... bookmarklets and actual chrome extensions. According to the presentation, a bookmarklet is "a bookmark that runs javascript on the current page instead of taking you to a new page" (like a regular bookmark would).The basic premise of both bookmarks and chrome extensions is altering the "location" field on the "add page" form in order to execute the javascript.

An extension is only slightly more complicated than a bookmarklet... at least the examples we did during the meetup, but i'm sure that this is where it can get really complex with more sophisticated ideas. An extension has a manifest.json file which outlines the name, version, description, javascript files (or html or css) you want to pull in, and where you want the extension to work.

Finally, we spent a little bit of time talking about examples of chrome extensions people might want to build, how to distribute and deploy a chrome extension, and some security things to keep in mind when either downloading or deploying an extension.

As I mentioned earlier, I still assume that making a more complex extension is more difficult. It seems like it could potentially involve a significant amount of code and because of how the code is pulled into a chrome extension, could be complicated to mentally keep it all straight and organized. All in all though, I had no idea that building an extension was so straightforward and I can't wait to think more critically about extensions I use or actions that might make sense to make an extension for.

The second part of this presentation that I liked was how it was taught! It is really difficult to teach something technical without really knowing the group of people you are teaching. It is even more difficult to do this when you know that there will be a pretty diverse level of skills in attendance as well. Casey did a great job! He started by framing what we were doing and what the end goal of the "lesson" was. He then had us pair up, which enabled everyone to work with someone on the parts of lesson that were self-guided. It was great to bounce ideas off of someone else and, we all know that often at technical meetups it can be difficult to meet other people. The guide that he walked us through was really clear and easy to understand. You could move through it faster if you were more experienced or slower if you were less so. It was a lesson but felt very laid back, informal, and fun. Finally, we worked independently in small chunks of time but then came together in between those times. When we came together as a group, Casey made sure we were all paying attention and as a result I think there was much more group participation than if he had just hoped that everyone was engaged instead of really enforcing that they do so. I feel like everyone left having met/spoken to someone AND actually having learned a bit more about chrome extensions.

RubyConf Australia

I am actually working on a more technical post. It's so difficult to come up with them when I can't show code from work since that's what i'm doing and learning al day!

In the meantime I wanted to announce that I'm SO excited to be speaking at RubyConf Australia in February about working remotely with the phenomenal Kevin Hopkins.

Look ma, I’m on a podcast!

I talk to people all the time about what it’s like to work remotely, especially what it’s like to work remotely as a newer developer. The wonderful folks at The Frontside decided that it would make a great topic for their podcast this week. Here’s a link:  https://frontsidethepodcast.simplecast.fm/  Enjoy!

I'm Back!

After a hiatus (which was admittedly even longer than I thought it was!), I've decided that everyone’s got to start somewhere. So, in an attempt to re-commit to blogging, and not let this be another dead technical blog on the interwebs, this is a simple update post. I had envisioned doing something more substantial than just an update but after watching “post on blog” float on my to-do list from one week to the next, I figured its best to just get something up and try to get things going again.

Since the last time I blogged, I am still at General Assembly, learning new things every day. I spoke at Ruby Nation 2015 about presenters! My first technical talk. I took a mobile development/swift course, attended Strangeloop and DCamp again, and had a baby (there will definitely be a future post about taking maternity eave as a newer developer AND having to take pumping breaks as a dev, two things that I've found very difficult).

I'm looking forward to getting back to posts about things I'm learning like more Javascript and writing better tests, things I've found newly challenging like anything related to coding and babies, and things I've gotten better at like being a remote junior developer. My goal is to post at least once a month so see you in a few weeks!

Interesting Reads 6/27 - 7/10

Seems as though either lots of people are on vacation and therefore there is less to read OR I am just super crazy busy and have missed some great posts. Well, I've only got a few posts for today but they're good ones, so check them out.

Things I learned as a Software Engineer

An older but great post about making fat models skinnier

What makes a good startup engineer (as opposed to a regular engineer)

Asking the questions

When someone is asked to describe me, the word ‘shy’ does not come to mind. I am not a quiet person and I don’t fear asking questions. In fact, I know that pushing myself to never be embarrassed and to ask any question that came to mind as I was learning to code is absolutely what helped me progress to where I am today. However, recently, I’ve found myself holding back and keeping a bit quieter and why? Because I think that I should know better.

When I first started on this journey of learning to code, I knew nothing and I mean, nothing. I had never opened the terminal before, had never used the command line, really didn’t know all that much beyond basic information about computers in general. Because I had no knowledge, I decided I could ask anything. Nothing was off limits and nothing was a stupid question because everything was new to me. In my first full time contract position, I asked lots of questions. I was able to do this without fear and without concern because I told everyone that it was my first full time position and I still had a lot to learn.

I wrote a post a while ago about how the things you worry about change as your progress from super new to new and then new to first full time position, so I think this is a thing that happens when transitioning from a first position to a second one.

Recently, I’ve been afraid to ask questions. I know that’s silly and completely unwarranted. Everyone knows that for your entire life as a programmer, asking questions is the best way to learn! I hope to never stop asking questions! So, what’s been stopping me. Well, part of me feels like I should know better. I’ve been learning for a while now… I’m not completely brand new to programming anymore, but what does that mean? How much should I know? Is it okay to ask to be reminded of things? Or to need a refresher? Are other people judging me when I ask a question? Especially if the question seems super simple?

Logically, I know asking questions is great. The more questions I ask, the better I’ll get. And the better I get, the more confident I’ll become (or at least that’s what I think). But even though I know all of this and it makes sense in my mind, a small part of me is still worried about what other people think of me, about how much or little I progress on a regular basis, and about what I now or don’t know. I just keep reminding myself that asking questions is good! And that asking makes me better! And finally, that if I don’t ask… even the simple questions that I might be embarrassed about having to ask, then I’ll never know the answer and that’s even worse.

Interesting Reads 6/21 - 6/27

Just a few short reads this week on SQL, servers, interviews, and teams.

Enjoy!


Working on a distributed team

A perfectly bad interview question

Culture fit and its dangers

SQL joins

App server comparisons