Coding Bootcamp Week 7/13: Final Week on Back-end

4 min readDec 5, 2021

You know, I’m something of a developer myself.

(Have you booked your Spider-man: No Way Home tickets yet?!)

This is it. I can finally say I’m some sort of a “developer”. I have performed some development and have developed something.

We have finally reached the middle mark (Week 7 Wednesday!) of our Coding Bootcamp at Northcoders, and it has been an amazing learning experience. As I’m writing this blog, I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that I’ve been learning coding full-time for 7 weeks now. And, by god, has it been a ride!

I have come from an absolute n00b to a “something of a developer”, albeit still a n00b. The more I learn, that more I find out that there’s STILL a lot more to learn, that I can go deeper, and that’s what’s exciting me the most. It feels like a bottomless pit of learning, and I have been falling for 7 weeks.

This but 7 weeks instead of 30 minutes!

What we Learned This Week

Even though this week has been dedicated to a five-day sprint creating an API, we still had morning lectures where the following were discussed:

Async & Await
Complex queries with PostgreSQL
Advanced Error Handling
Hosting with Heroku and Introduction to CICD

We also had one session dedicated to general Q&A, where we got to ask anything really, but most questions I noticed were all related to what we learned in the back-end.

During this session, it was emphasized that it’s more important to understand the context, structure, and logic behind the code than the syntax, which makes a lot of sense. The context, structure, and logic are the same with every language, and it’s a good foundation to focus on these instead of the syntax.

My API

For this week, we were asked to pick between two options to work on for five days: nc_games or nc_news. I picked nc_games for obvious reasons, and was surprised to find out games meant board games. Needless to say, I got more excited.

Once my endpoints were working and tests passing, we had to deploy our code using Heroku and actually see it in action on the internet. It was euphoric: entering a path in Google Chrome and seeing the JSON file I wanted.

I decided to name my app Gamers of the North. I only really reworded Northgamers, which was the name one of the mentors used during the lecture as an example. It’s definitely not a Game of Thrones reference.

>> You may peruse my Gamers of the North GitHub repo here. <<

My own README.md! Makes it feel ✨ o f f i c i al ✨

Creating Endpoints and Passing the Tests

Creating the tests, then the endpoints, and THEN passing the tests, are probably my most favourite things to do. I have developed my own routine when creating a new endpoint/request, which goes like:

Create test > See the test fail > Create the route and method > Write the controller > Write the module > Pass the test > Rinse & Repeat

Of course, there are console logs littered in that routine and I will not apologise for it.

I’m definitely NOT obsessed with creating tests.

Mentor Feedback

On Friday, we had to submit our work so a mentor can review our code and give feedback.

I received my comprehensive feedback near the end of the day and I could not be happier about it. I did most things right and only needed to do some minor changes, on top of the suggested endpoints I haven’t completed yet. I wanted to actually complete them this weekend but I thought that could wait until our 3-week Christmas break!

The final bit of the feedback. I am literally framing this. ❤️

Whenever I get a praise from a mentor, I treat it as a success. This week, even though it was frustrating and difficult from time to time, has been a success as well no doubt!

I am obsessed with coding

It’s really all I think about these days. How much stuff I can do, how much freedom I have to build something. The only real barrier is my very own imposter syndrome.

This morning I woke with a jolt, because I had dreamed about a solution to my pagination problem for this very API. I can’t believe I have literally solved a coding problem in my sleep…

Note to self:

We might be finished with the back-end block, but it’s all living in my head rent-free. HTML and CSS didn’t have this effect on me, but I’m ready to be proven wrong as we start our front-end block tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Northcoders Bootcamp Series