Double the Post, Double the trouble
This post will most likely be longer than previous ones, as I was in a car traveling around a lot last Friday due to an appointment that was 2.5 hrs away, and deciding to instead make a day of it. I'm not a car trip person typically, as I'm definitely the kind of person who is okay with the 'awkward' silence in the car. I'll just sit there and disassociate from everything and be perfectly okay with it, while anyone else is desperately trying to make a conversation. It's very fun so I've been told...I'm still not sure if they were being sarcastic.
But as for the trips I'll talk about it at the end of the post to end on a higher note, but until then... to the software development stuff!
Umbrella Project Advancements
Starting off we have my Umbrella Project. Over these past two weeks we've made great progress on it and are easily on track for our next demo goal. We currently have working Login and Create Account functions within the application. Along with that they have actual validation and encryption.
I've never messed with encryption before however Dotnet has a package called BCrpyt that allows for easy hashcoding of a password. So whenever an account is created, the password that the user puts in gets hashed for encryption before it is stored in our DB. Along with that, no two accounts can exist with the same email. If you try to create one, a HTTP Response is given saying that an account already exist with that email.
I just got the login logic to work properly, one of three HTTP responses will happen, either a Ok signalling that you are properly logged in, a NotFound saying that no account with that email exists, or a Conflict when the password you gave does not match our encrypted record.
Although I know more security can be implemented with these to ensure no mishaps can happen, for a start it's great. I do worry about the long-term development of this project as it doesn't have heavy functionality. Since the apprenticeship is going to end in another 3 months, I am wondering if we will finish way before then, manage to find additional things to do to stretch it, or what.
IT Department's new Best friend
So I mentioned before that I've been having technical difficulties with my employer host's provided laptop....well they only just NOW got fixed and whether or not it holds up is another thing. Which I swear if it doesn't work come next week when I'm working with them again. At this point I'm going to be IT's new best friend with how much I am having to refer to them. My brain can't handle it again.
I've been on the team for 3 weeks and for all those 3 weeks I have been able to contribute almost nothing. I can't do any coding or anything like that since my development environment was not able to be set up correctly. And it has unfortunately made my mental health deteriorate a bit. Although it isn't my fault and I know I have no reason to feel bad about it, unfortunately the way my brain is I can't help but feel bad. I strive to be able to contribute in some way. Luckily the progress on my Umbrella project, and just hanging out with friends and making sure to distance myself to give myself that break managed to not make it a serious issue.
However, after a 3hr meeting with someone from IT and messing around with the terminal, we seem to have fixed the issue and the dev environment should be able to be properly installed and set up now. So watch out as I can now start actually coding things and helping out with bugs and perhaps a feature.
Also I found it kind of amusing while in that meeting, as I'm not familiar with MacOS or the terminal commands with it. And so the IT guy was walking me through it all the wa, I understood very little of what was going on as my brain had completely checked out an hour in that meeting due to having been in meetings all day before this one. But I am forever appreciative of him and the time he dedicated to helping out.
Time to get Personal
So now I just want to share about the day I decided to make out of the 20min appointment I had to go to, that was 2.5hrs away. Along with some just random personal feelings I've encountered over the past couple of weeks, feel free to skip to the next portion. I too hate it when someone is trying to give their life story when you just want the brownies recipe, although I guess this is a blog about my experiences so it fits better? I guess? Just jump past until the Smiley face to skip to the happier nerdy topics.
Anyways.
To start, I'm going to be real. Regardless of who you are, your feelings are valid. As such I just want to put mine out there. Not only to encapsulate how I've been feeling, but to let any other aspiring developer, or even already professional full-stack developers, that you may not be alone.
I personally am a person who desperately aims to help others out and contribute in some way. If I'm not making an impact, helping people, or feel that my place is unwarranted, it absolutely drags me down. And I've suffered from Anxiety and Depression because of it. It sucks. Deriving your success or happiness off of other people sucks and is unhealthy if not taken care of. However some people are like that. They need that validation that "Hey, I managed to make their day", or "Hey that helped a lot, thanks" coming from someone else.
I do not know where my place is at my employer host. I'm technically an Intern who is getting paid part-time. And although that to some is degrading or possibly humiliating, it isn't something to be sad about. It's where I'm starting. I plan to improve and get to a higher point. Whether its with them or another company, I aim to get to that "Software Developer" status and being paid full-time.
But aside from my employer host, just in general as well. Who can actively say where your place is in your career? Or life in general? It's a difficult question for many people. Some may say that you have fit in at all as a complete outlier, or someone could say that you fit in at the bottom in a degrading way. Regardless of what others say, it matters what you think, and even more so what you aim for.
Right now, I'm at the start of my career. And so even if I have to start as an intern getting paid part-time, I have aspiration and a goal to make my way up to being a full-time Software Developer. Even if other people, or even worse, the self-defeating voice in my head says otherwise. I know where I want to go, and I will take every step that I can to get there. But also make sure to give myself a break whenever I can.
So as a message to anyone whose reading this, who has that voice that questions your impact, or usefulness, you are not alone. I suffer through it as well, on a near daily basis. However the best way to get through it, in my experience, is to make a goal. Preferably concrete where you can easily go "this is done", and work towards it. Even if its incredibly small, every step is a step none the less. And eventually you'll look back and see that you've traveled pretty far, despite the darker side of ya. Just look forward, take each day one at a time, and eventually you'll grow to be a better person. Don't get stuck ruminating on those bad thoughts. And if it helps, know that I believe in you.
So here's to you, you absolutely brilliant person.
Back to happier things
To go back to some happier things, lets talk about my, I think 12hr escapade away from home.
So first of all, I'm based in South Carolina, in the Charleston area, and I had to drive 2.5hrs for an appointment for my employer host. Which was expected to take like 15 minutes, although it was 20 due to a small wait queue. And then rather than drive another 2.5hrs back home I decided to just make a day of it and just drive around and explore. So I went and tried this place called Vampire Penguin in Aiken SC, I solely went there due to the name cause what kind of restaurant is named "Vampire Penguin". Well it turns out its a absolutely delicious shaved ice parlor? Is that the right word for it? Parlor?
Well the shaved ice desserts they are were absolutely delicious, and somehow did not taste like normal shaved ice desserts. I assume it was cause it was so finely shaved that it someone just tasted like a normal dessert, except with a bit of a different texture due to it being shaved ice.
After that I decided to go to Columbia and explore some places, two of which were amazing. It was a fairly large comic book shop which had SOOOO many comics and collectible figurines of comic book characters. It felt so weird seeing some of the characters I had long forgotten about in some comics I used to read. The variety was amazing and oh boy was I tempted to buy some Witcher figurines. Despite the 'lovely' price tag of $300.
Then I explored a store called Firefly Toys and Games which was a massive place with tons of board games, card games, video games from older consoles (which can you believe that God of War 2 for PSP is apparently $200?), and tons of other tabletop games. They even had an arcade, and even better, a massive wall of Jelly Beans sorted by flavor that you could buy by the pound. Although we all can agree that jelly beans aren't healthy, does that ever stop us from devouring any?
I fully plan on going back there to buy some new games and possibly meet some people as they have a large floor of empty tables you can play games at with whoever.
To recap and Next Goals
So here comes the end, thank you for reading this. It does mean a lot to know my thoughts and experiences are being shared. But as a recap:
- Managed to code a Login and Create Account function
- After 3 agonizing weeks of tech issues, finally got rid of a persistent unknown error preventing my work laptop to set up my Dev Environment
- Got to embrace my nerdy side by going on a road trip to make the most of my 15min appointment that was 2.5hrs away.
Wow....seeing what has happened in the past two weeks just summed up in three bullets is weird. Perhaps I could have been less wordy earlier but oh well, my high school english teacher would be proud of how I managed to stretch those small bullets to a be a lot more than that.
But for now I am eager to get to work with my employer host and hopefully will get just a single bug fixed. Just to show that I am able to contribute and help out, also just solidifying that my laptop is actually working.
Along with that, to polish some features on the Umbrella project and get to work on implementing the logic for a journal entry to be put in.
Until next week.
Ciao.
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