2 Weeks In: 100 Days of Code Python Bootcamp

Wow! I am officially 2 weeks into my adventure with the 100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp for 2023 and I wanted to share my initial thoughts with everyone on this fantastic program led by Angela Yu.

Background

First, I want to share a little of my background and experience. I earned my Bachelors degree in Computer Science from Longwood College (now Longwood University ) in 1995 becoming one of the first to graduate with this new degree. In the early years of my career I was a developer and implementation consultant working with software giants like Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, and others. I customized, configured, integrated, and implemented these complex ERP and CRM enterprise applications for clients across the United States and Europe for 12 years traveling from client to client doing most of my work onsite.

Eventually, I switched gears around 2005 and entered the world of Project Management. I still leveraged my knowledge of development and technology to help my teams build complex solutions for my clients, but I was essentially no longer "touching a keyboard" to build solutions for my clients.

In 2016, I started working with Evolent , a healthcare and technology company based in Arlington, VA. I started out working with a small number of teams helping them embrace Scrum and Agile concepts to make their Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) more efficient. This was the first "internal software development" team that I had ever worked with and I was working directly with the software engineers (that's what they are called these days) that are building the applications.

Now a lot of time has past between the start of my career and where I am now. When I was a software developer, I did everything. I was the BA gathering and documenting requirements. I was the UI developer. I was the backend/services developer. I was the DBA. I was the Tester. When I started working with these software development teams in 2016 I couldn't believe how the role of software engineer had been broken up into front end/UI developers, backend/services developers, DBAs, testers, etc. I could not understand how these individuals could not take a requirement and build out a full solution on their own.

Evolent has grown tremendously in the past 7 years and our Software Engineering group has exploded from a team of ~50 in the Arlington HQ to a team of ~500 across the US and in India and we've gone from ~5 Scrum Teams to 50+. And thankfully, we are starting to embrace full stack development. ?? This has prompted me to invest in myself and learn the Python programming language so that I may better understand our engineering teams and their struggles with the ultimate goal of helping them continue to grow, scale, and continue to efficiently build world-class software applications for the healthcare industry.

100 Days of Code Bookcamp: 2 Weeks In

As of today, I am 2 weeks into my experience with the 100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp for 2023 course and as of today I have crossed over from "Beginner" to "Intermediate". You are given the option to skip over days if you are more advanced and have experience programming, but I am going to take this course day by day and "double up" if I have time on the weekends and I feel like I am comprehending and absorbing all of the material.

When I was a computer science student in the early 1990's learning COBOL, Fortran, Pascal, and C++ from a stodgy old professor standing at a blackboard at the head of the class, I sometimes wanted to give up. Programming never came naturally to me and I had to struggle to keep up with the concepts. Learning in class from a stodgy professor referring to a text book and then spending the evenings in a computer lab trying to make sense and apply the concepts on top of all of my other classes was 4 years of "fun" in college. And the one Computer Science professor that my college had was not the best "teacher" or mentor.

This course is a complete game changer. First, the teacher or facilitator of this course, Angela Yu, does an awesome job in some key categories that are important for conveying difficult subject material to students:

• Breaking complex subject matter down into easier to understand chunks
• Building off of previously covered material
• Reinforcing concepts
• Continuously motivating her students

Also, this is a 21st Century classroom! No more text books or blackboards! I am learning by leveraging technology like replit.com and Coding Rooms for developing and understanding how to build programs. After getting a firm foundation in the first 14 days of the class, I am now crossing over to the "Intermediate" phase and I have just installed Python and the PyCharm IDE on my laptop. Software Engineers today have no idea how spoiled they are. Yes, I said it! You have an entire community that can help you. Stack Overflow is a wealth of knowledge and help available to assist any developer from beginner to professional at any time, day or night, solve any issue that they are having with a simple Google search. This community of helpful and experienced peers was not available when I was a Computer Science student. For support, all we had was our little group of peers. Back in the day, we were like Damon in prison...all we had was "...nothing but the fellas."

The instructor, Angela Yu, covers the concepts to be taught that day with examples that make learning fun and then she builds from those concepts into a holistic solution. Each step builds off of the other. I have some times felt overwhelmed, even in these first couple of weeks, but Angela reminds you to go back and just review the content until you are comfortable.

Keep Pushing Forward

For me, probably the most important aspect of this course so far is that the content and the way that it is delivered has been engaging. This helps me stay motivated and wanting to continue to push forward and progress to the next day. I find myself looking forward to the late nights of learning after my wife has gone to bed and I am downstairs on the couch with my laptop. It kind of reminds me of all of those late nights working at client sites trying to debug a complex integration program where millions of dollars of payroll money was at stake.

I'll check back with everyone in a couple of weeks when I have hopefully progressed from "Intermediate" to "Intermediate +". ??

Remember to keep investing in yourself!