Ray Kim - Full Stack - Self Assessment

Module 1 - Getting Started

1. Overview

  • Technical Area:

-Learned about Discourse. what it is and how to use it.

-Learned a new language, Ruby.

  • Tools:

– Terminal, Discourse, STEM-Away forum, Github, Atom.

  • Soft Skills:

– Learned how to solve my query by searching google and StackOverflow when I get stuck.

2. Achievement Highlights

  • Installed Discourse successfully. In order to install Discourse, I deleted and reinstalled it several times and finally, I understood the process.
  • Learned new language, Ruby. I followed along with video lectures, so it was easy to understand the new language.
  • Got the mindset of learning new knowledge. Learning new knowledge is always interesting and whenever I learn something, I get stuck many times. Even though understanding new knowledge could take a long time, there are many sources to catch up, so I have enjoyed it so far.

3. Challenges

  • Before I worked on this assignment, I never used Discourse and Ruby. Learning Ruby was not challenging since I had some background in Java and C++. Their basic syntax is almost similar to each other, so I enjoyed watching Youtube lectures about Ruby, Whereas, installing Discourse was tricky even though there was a detailed guideline on the STEM-Away forum. I followed that step by step, but I was not able to log in to Discourse at first; therefore, I deleted and reinstall a few times and finally figured out my mistakes.

Module 2 - Dev Environment Setup

Overview

  • Technical Area

Learning a new language, Ruby, and applying the language in various problems. Using Atom and Github properly. Communicating with my teammates about our project.

  • Tools

Ruby, GitHub, Git, Atom, Trello

  • Soft Skills

Watching Ruby and Github lectures and practicing the knowledge on Atom.

Three achievement highlights

  1. Read and downloaded all required files such as Ember.js and SCSS.
  2. Completed branch, commit, and push to GitHub successfully.
  3. Watched all of the lecture videos on this module step by step.

Statement of tasks completed

  1. Learned Ruby with the lecture videos.
  2. Learned how to use git & Github and Trello.
  3. Installed, ran Discourse on my local machine and looked around the Discourse website.

Goals for next week

  1. getting more familiar with ruby language and Ember.js
  2. browse the Discourse website, and get some sources about a theme and plug-in information for my team project.

Module 3: Developing Discourse Themes

  • Technical Areas

    • Learned about how Discourse themes work
    • Got familiar using SCSS
    • Learned experience working with Git CLI
  • Tools

    • VSCode, Terminal, Git, GitHub, Discourse platform.
  • Soft Skills:

    • Followed directions step by step to apply new features.
    • Tried to communicate with my group members whenever I got stuck.

2. Three Achievement Highlights

  • Applied my new knowledge to develop my own Discourse theme on my local Discourse forum.
  • Learned about customizing Discourse theme and its functionalities.
  • Brainstormed about my personal theme

3. Tasks completed

  • Followed all steps correctly from the “Developer’s guide on Discourse Themes”
  • Developed and changed a simple Discourse theme.
  • Explored what kind of theme has been developed on Discourse forum, and applied one of the simple functionalities.

4. Goals for next week

  • Start learning about the more advanced levels of theme.
  • Start thinking about a plug-in project.
  • Redesign my current simple theme as more like fancy.

Module 4: Advanced Discourse Themes

Tools:

  • Discourse forum
  • STEM-AWAY Forum
  • Discourse Theme CLI
  • Command Line Tool
  • DOM Inspector
  • VS Code

Technical Area:

  • Completed Developer’s Guide to Discourse Themes.
  • Learned how to create various themes using Discourse’s Theme CLI.
  • Learned how to apply font awesome icons.

Soft Skills:

  • Brainstormed about my team’s plugin ideas
  • Attended group meetings and regular meetings to solve my questions.

3 Achievements:

  • Updated my new theme using the CLI, DOM inspector, and got some ideas from the Discourse forum.
  • Learned about handlebars, and AJAX
  • In my team meeting, we discussed what plugin API we will make for a final project.

Tasks Completed:

  • Read all required directions on the discourse forum about themes.
  • Applied advanced level of themes and changed my theme variously.
  • Brainstormed a few plugin ideas for my final project and discussed them with my team.

Goals for next week:

  • Will go through all of the required readings.
  • Finished planning stages for our plugin design.
  • Read up more on pull requests to prepare for the final project.

Module 5: Plugin Development Continued

Tools:

  • Discourse, Stem-Away Forum, Discourse Theme CLI, DOM Inspector, Git, Github

Technical Area:

  • Brainstorming about our plug-in design.
  • Plugin APIs, AJAX requests, and handlebars
  • Learned more about git especially pull request and amend.

Soft Skills:

  • researched and brainstormed individually about our final project.
  • Design the basic work-through of our final project on Figma

3 Achievements:

  • Learned the basics of how to create my own plugin
  • Studied AJAX requests and handlebars

Tasks Completed:

  • Thought about my team project’s design and functionalities.
  • Went over how to use ember.js, ruby on rail to code my team project successfully.

Goals for next week:

  • Have finished studying all of the requirements and supplemental resources
  • Will be done the most basic step(right before publishment) of our project.

Module 6: Plugin Development Continued

Tools:

  • Discourse, STEM-AWAY Forum, Visual Studio, Discourse Theme CLI, Github

Technical Area:

  • Went over Ember.js, ruby on rails to implement my final project
  • Practiced how to make and apply my local plugin to my personal discourse site.

Soft Skills:

  • Brainstormed about my task for the final project, especially how to replace posts based on votes.
  • Kept communicating with my group members to finish our project successfully.

3 Achievements:

  • Finished all the required reading parts, and some of the supplemental resources of this week.
  • Got a better understanding of plugin with github.

Tasks Completed:

  • Decided what task I need to do for the final project.
  • Took recorded lectures for this week, and researched about discourse plugin to understand this concept.

Goals for next week:

  • Will finish the final project by the deadline.
  • Fully understand how to implement plugins successfully.