Blog Post #4
How do you approach learning something new, like a new technology?
- video demos
- lots of print statements
My team is creating a cross-platform mobile app that creates a fitness plan consisting of workouts based on your fitness level and fitness goals. We are using React Native Javascript as the frontend and Firebase as the backend.
Before starting this project, I was super rusty with Javascript (hadn’t worked with the language since web dev, a loooooong time ago), had no exposure to Firebase, and had never created a mobile app before. I knew there was going to be a steeeep learning curve, but I was ready!
When it comes to learning, I’m a visual learner. Video demos are my favorite medium because I can 2x the speed and follow along. I bought the The Complete React Native + Hooks Course on Udemy for ~$15 and it became part of my fundamental knowledge. I was able to create a demo app alongside the tutorials, and used a lot of what I learned into the capstone project. I did not watch all the videos, but I watched enough to get me jump started on tasks for the first few weeks. I still refer to the content from time-to-time for examples.
Once I tackled React Native, it was on to Firebase. I could not find as many reliable video tutorials for this topic, so I decided to add print statements everywhere, which helped me understand the structure of its requests and responses.
How do you work through being “stuck” on a problem
Being “stuck” tends to be synonymous with “learning”. When I need a bit more than official docs, video tutorials and debug print statements to get unstuck, I first Google search if there are other folks who have encountered the same situation. I like using quotes when searching for specific error messages to get exact hits. I also sometimes add my intend goal in the search query. Often times, searching lead me to Stack Overflow or a Medium post where I try out their solutions. Since starting this project, if I have method calls I know I want to use, I’ve also begun using GitHub’s search functionality to see if other folks have used the method. If none of the above works, I’ll then ask my teammates for help (and they’re always happy to)!
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