Mentee | SoC Bootcamp 2.0
From Baby to Big Boy
My journey from beginner to intermediate with SOC.
It all started when I got a call from my mentor at Dev-Clan. He wanted me to work on a project. He asked for what I’d be interested in, so being my poetic self, I replied:
” I want something that will push me to search deep into Google”
Long story cut short, I got a task to build a REST API with some advanced design specifications. I turned to Google but I didn’t make much progress. I had just gotten pass building a to-do API and i was stuck implementing some advanced features.
In the midst of the confusion and compounding frustration, I got a mail from GDG OAU announcing SOC 2.0 . The joy in my eyes reading the mail.
I was part of the first edition of bootcamp. SoC v1.0 gave me a fine start as a Front-end Developer (now I do React.js :p ) and I knew it could only get better.
What more? The timing was just perfect. So I applied, filling-in Node.js as my interest and awaited a response.
Finally, the wait was over. I got a mail back that and it was time for the first general meetup.
P.S: I got there late and missed the first meet up :( .
But luckily I met the organiser, David Asamu and Tolu Fakiyesi. I was really disappointed to find out that the Node.js mentor was not going to be available. I was advised to go with PHP. I really didn’t have much choice so I joined the PHP bus.
But I left the bus the next day :p .
The next day, David gave me the biggest surprise ever. He got a node.js mentor. Yippee! It’s bye bye PHP.
Sorry for slying my PHP mentor, Tolu Fakiyesi .
My new mentor was Oyeyemi Clement (really cool dude!). He highlighted all we will be covering in the little time we had. Obviously there wasn’t enough time to become a super badass next level ninja so we decided to focus on the basics.
Lectures starts……
First day, we discussed about routes and middleware. How routes should be written and the different way it could be written. Clement also helped resolve issues i was having and provided sound explanation to my unanswered questions. Next we dived into building APIs for a react app I built late last year (P.S: its a todo app nothing fancy) .
Wow, it was all so easy and straight forward. It was highly self motivating to work on something I had deep interest in.
Over the Next few days, I was progressing a lot faster. Squashing my own bugs, and learning cool new stuffs. Clement was there to provide clarifications as required. During every class, there was always an Ah-Ah moment where all the seemingly rubbish stuff I heard/read from tutorials finally clicks.
Here is a list of what we covered:
- View engines
- Mongoose and Express
- Npm i — save-dev and npm i -save
- File structure of node application
- Error handling
- Testing
- Some good practices
- Tdd
Well, it was all fun throughout the program , hunting down bugs and googling our way out. I really wished we had more time.
If you interested in my to-do api you can find it here @my github
The Bigger Picture
The main aim of the program, as it has always been from SOC 1.0, is to strengthen the bond and communism of Devs in our community. It might not seem too obvious at first, but it was never lacking in any form.
I got to spend time with other members of the community. Well, I had no regular partner but I was able to interact with my instructor / mentor better. I also enjoyed every moment trolling the guys on the php bus :), they were like partners from another bus. We created our little clique and all. It was fun!
From four legs to two …
Back to my main aim of joining SoC. I finally had the knowledge, the resources and the help I needed to complete the project. I began working on the API again and it felt a lot easier now. I had help from Clement and I was really happy when I finished the API and got it working .
P.S: My group decided to work on this for as our team project. It is now live at https://blacklistapps.herokuapp.com
Screenshots included below:
Well, SoC was really a great experience and I was glad to be part of the program . Looking forward to SoC 3.0 , hopefully i can make it up to Tolu :p .
