Zachary Lopez

Dreaming of code

I dream in code.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed this more and more. Last night was especially vivid as I was dreaming about the specific bug in the project code that I was working on at Hack Reactor yesterday.

It is a strange feeling. I feel like I have some measure of control over what I am dreaming about and focusing my mind on the code where I got stuck.

I am not sure how restful this sleep is, but I feel like it is providing me a clarity that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

I am a little worried that I am thinking about code too much, all through the work day (13 hours) and then when I am sleeping as well. We shall see if this catches up to me.

Started a new sprint today with Ryan Lee focused on authentication. Today’s lectures brought out some scary things about safety and security on the internet. Basically, a site’s security is only as good as the engineers implementing them.

Today’s security standards will soon be obsolete. It’s important to keep data secure and to continously update your security methods.

Highlights of the day:

• SQLite
• Authentication

In my 10 year career in Affordable Housing, I’ve had many opportunities to be on both sides of the interview table. In this time, I feel like I have learned quite a bit, both about the things not to do and the things you should do. This post will be an attempt to document the things I’ve learned and hopefully provide a nugget or two for you.

Caveat: obviously this is all style and preference. These are the things that have helped me become a confident interviewee.

Highlights of the day:

• SQL
• Reflections after 4 weeks

SQL

Today was all about inner joins and nested select statements. SQL is very powerful, but you have to chain the syntax together correctly. That and there are a few different ways to make certain requests.

We were able to get the database to write and read our data. The hardest part was nesting selects into our insert.

Overall, I like working with databases and keeping data persistent.

Reflections after 4 weeks

Wow, so this has concluded the first month of Hack Reactor. We have covered a lot, and I’m glad to have documented much of it in this blog. With the pace of the course, it is often hard to remember what topic we were covering just a few days ago.

How satisfied am I with Hack Reactor?

So much new today: Databases and a new server fraamework. New sprint started with Benoy Maniara.

Things are still fast furious.

Highlights of the day:

• Express
• MySQL

Express

Express is framework that makes the node server easier to use. Still wrapping my head around this one as there is a lot different in the syntax and how it handles requests.

In essence, a lot more is compartmentalized, so you end up with much more modular code.