Free Code Camp Bolingbrook

After unsuccessfully trying to get a Beginner Java Group going last year, I decided to give it a try again this year with Free Code Camp Bolingbrook. Free Code Camp has a ton of free resources, a full free curriculum, chat rooms and articles and so much support. I reached out to a couple other group leaders in the area and got some tips to get the group going. To start, the meetings will be once a month and I am just the organizer not a teacher. The first meeting was small but there was enough interest to get started. We went over the new and old curriculum of FCC, did introductions and had some project collaboration. 

Free Code Camp Study Group based in Bolingbrook, IL Share the link to our local group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeCodeCampBolingbrook

Learn to code at: https://freecodecamp.com

Open Hack Naperville

This is a friendly open environment to work on whatever project you are interested in. There are a lot of developers here to get feedback from and free pizza! Today I worked on the Android Udacity Scholarship course but spent most of my time setting up on my new laptop. I had to enable virtualization and run Android Studio as admin to avoid the errors I was trying to get working. I hope to have more progress at the next meetup.

Windy City Dev Fest at Google

Google Developer Group held Windy City Dev Fest at Google. This is a one day conference self-described as "A 100% community organized developer conference with industry experts presenting on exciting topics!" There were many sessions geared towards Android or mobile developers. Below are the courses I attended:

Session 1: Moto Mods with Christian Flowers from the Moto Mods team
He explained the process of developing your own Moto Mod starting from your hardware idea, to the software and approval process.



Session 2: Cheat code, combo, or power up by Michelle Schulp
This talk was about the advantages of using existing code and choosing how to decide different level developer contributions.

Session 3: AR Core with Patrick Fuentes
This was a great session on augmented reality and how the technology behind it is fairly new. There was a super cool presentation on how anchors and plane finding work as well as some of the challenges such as lighting issues and reflective surfaces. Definitely an area of interest I'd like to spend some time on in the future.

Session 4: Demystifying Constraint Layout with James Williams
This session was all about the constraint layout used in developing android apps.

Session 5: Firebase Analytics for Android Live! with Stacy Devino
Stacy walked through an app she had setup for the group and was able to pull real-time analytics such as options users chose on a survey and what type of phone they were using.

Session 6: Build your own app for Google Home with Martin Omander
This was a nice presentation on how simple it is to build your own Google app for Google home.

For more information, see the conference page: https://windycity.devfest.io/home

Grow with Google Challenge Scholarship: Android Developer Intermediate

I applied for and was accepted to the Grow with Google Challenge Scholarship: Android Developer - Intermediate. This is a twelve week scholarship that can result in a free Nanodegree program if you are one of the top finalists. In order to move on the next round (based on the numbers it looks like 1 in 10 will proceed), I will need to complete the coursework as well as contribute to the slack channel and the forums.

Check back for updates on this in April and wish me luck!

Women Who Go (Chicago) Let's Learn About Go Types and Interfaces

I had met Carolyn Van Slyck at a previous meetup and decided to check out her Women Who Go meetup. This event was about Go Types and Interfaces. It was interesting to note how easily you can declare a variable in Go and that the language categorizes it for you. I loved that the meetup was a smaller group and much easier to ask questions. I did run into some Windows technical issues getting started and was not able to take many notes on this one.

Metis One Day at Bootcamp: Python & Data Modeling Training

David Ziganto/Senior Data Scientist at Metis led a free one day bootcamp intro to Python and Data Science. This was a great intro to Python and how it is used in sorting and preparing data for specific presentations or uses. We used Anaconda and Jupyter notebook to practice simple steps for sorting and displaying data in different ways. After lunch he moved on to advanced topics using SciKit Learn to model linear regression and data prediction. 

Nathan from Metis bootcamp explained how their bootcamp is for people already comfortable with coding. There is an interview process and several prerequisites for those interested in going into data science but it is a very rewarding field and they seemed very passionate about it.

I have included the link to the event which has more information for those interested in data science:

https://www.meetup.com/Metis-Chicago-Data-Science/events/244672898/

Uncle Bob: Clean Code at Illinois Java Users Group

IJUG hosted Uncle Bob Martin, author of many famous coding books such as Clean Code. He was preceded by a lightning talk about the legal aspects of consulting.

Ian Berliner/Atty presented a short talk on the pros and cons of consulting. He mentioned the job security aspect of working for a large company but also talked about tax benefits in favor consulting. He mentioned how important it is to protect yourself and your intellectual property when doing consulting work. He also spoke about how important it is to put in the contract how and when you will get paid such as when you reach certain milestones in the project. He recommended both parties have a right to terminate the contract and to make sure there is a clause where the company cannot sue you twenty years from now if they find an issue with the software. His last point was of course, to always have your agreement reviewed by an attorney before taking on any consulting job.

There was not a topic listed for Uncle Bob just background information on him, so I think several of us believed he was going to talk about Clean Code. Alternatively, he spoke about Clean Architecture his new book which was recently released. He mentioned the importance of keeping your database behind its own firewall and making requests from the server through functions. He also recommended that your business rules be separated from your GUI and your database through the use of plug ins and functions. More details can be found in his new book.

React for Beginners at Northwest Chicago JavaScript

This was a super fast intro to many features of React. A note to remember, React is a library whereas Angular is a framework. React is a smaller and quicker to pick up and use. Angular is much more intense with more features and information. The presentation showed how to use React components to render items in the browser. You can set items to render with both state and stateless ways as well as choose how the items will be manipulated.

Java Sneak Peek hosted by CJUG & GOTO nights with Brian Goetz/Oracle

This was a great talk from Brian Goetz/Oracle about what is up and coming in Java. The changes he spoke about were local variable inference, data classes, pattern matching, and safer serialization. None of the changes are guaranteed, but all ideas that his team is working on for the future.

He also spoke about Java not being a trendsetter, but more of a stable language. The folks at Oracle prefer to let other languages test features first and run them successfully for a while before Java will implement new ideas.

Write Speak Code Workshop "Own Your Expertise"

I attended the Write Speak Code "Own Your Expertise" Workshop this weekend and wow it was AMAZING! So many awesome women, everyone was super supportive and networking came easy with this group. I never really thought of myself as a writer, so I had passed this group up a few times. But when I attended, I found out it was so much more. Own your expertise was all about finding out what you are good at, what knowledge you have and how you can share it with others.

Of course the three ways to share your knowledge with others are to write, speak and code about it. But I never realized how you could take each one of these paths and aim it toward your own skills. One of the questions that really stood out to me was "What are the five things you talk about the most with others?" and to take those things among other skills to share.


This workshop was all about taking what skills you have or what interests you and using that to inspire you to code or help with an open source project, present at a conference or workshop, or write blogs and articles to spread the knowledge. This was emphasized due to the lack of women speakers and women's presence in general in so many events as leaders in tech. There were countless exercises and tons of support at this meetup, a definite one not to miss in the future!