Startup Week Half Day #1:

Tuesday, October 8th

It’s startup week in Austin’s tech scene so lots of events and talks are taking place all week. The best part of the week is Thursday night when participating startups hold open houses (small parties) for the community to come in, network, and explore.

One of the events I was looking forward to was a ladies tea shindig in the afternoon today. Okay, tea sounds too girly and a bit lame, but I always like when there are female-specific events, especially in a predominantly male field.

MakerSquare gave us a totally chill half-day so we could attend the event without missing any lessons. Unfortunately… my good friend Amy and I missed the bus… so we stayed at school for the rest of the day, until after 10pm actually.

Highlights:

Playing games in the morning for cohort bonding

Watching NBC film two of the cofounders (see video below)

Starting a Twitter ‘search / organize’ app to make digging through a single user’s tweets faster

Bootcamp behind the scenes! Watch @MakerSquare‘s @AtxStartupWeek segment by @KXAN_News http://t.co/rbYAsdRlRZ

— Becca Sheldon (@BeccaSheldon) October 9, 2013

What I learned today: ROR

Jeff Felchner went over the whole flow of ROR models, controllers, views and database retrieval with Amy and I. I have a pretty good understanding of Rails but it was supremely helpful to how all the parts work together at our level and learn about how they’ll work together when we become jr. developers. Plus, Jeff’s teaching style is super natural and thus, super helpful!

What I should have learned today: JavaScript

I was planning to rebuild the stock showing thing from Friday’s project in JavaScript. I wanted to rebuild it for practice and also I wanted to give it some sweet animation and css upgrades.

I just don’t know where to start with JavaScript. I can follow along in the lesson plans but I can’t apply my creativity to the language unless I use jQuery and I’m all fuzzy on how jQuery gets along with Backbone. So I spend forever researching and reading guides that don’t stick. I’m not sure how to move past this block. Maybe sleep will help!

Peace! ~becs