Major changes to the blog

Dear readers,

It has come to a time when I want to make two major changes to this blog:

1. Make it more than just coding, it'll be all Bay Area/  Silicon Valley, tech-centric Lifestyle blog
2. I want to make my personal coding website CodeDiv and all the video contents there FREE for all!
3. I want to do insights on "elite" lifestyle / career /education that is hard to access for many. For example, it was almost lucky and randomness that i got into Stanford, because my parents and including my counselor at that time, didn't have a clear picture of what I can do at all to get in. E.g., I have helped a dear friend find a job that she wouldn't dreamed of having, because none of her peers knew or dreamed of something like that, her parents are immigrants, so wouldn't know either. It's really an open education and advice sharing platform.

The difficulties and obstacles of turning it into this are:
1. web hosting costs
2. screenflow recording software costs
3. books and education, workshop costs to boost up my knowledge
4. professional writer / editor costs, i work with professionals on important articles like Twitter Bootstrap

Let me know your thoughts recommendations and support.

Also more on Hack Reactor coming soon! Like this Review:  Hack Reactor - the Human Factor

Review: Web Development Bootcamp Hack Reactor Part 1 - The Human Factor

The Human Factor Visualization

Students vs Staff, a sweet #

Does any one remember an old stat? Student-faculty-ratio? Time to think about that for our dear bootcamps, on which I have been writing about for the part year. As you know, Hack Reactor invited me for a day of unpaid research on-site.

This is a series of data-processing posts resolving mostly around qualitative data, that will eventually arrive at a video conclusion -  a review about Hack Reactor. 

And the first question that everyone asks: why is Hack Reactor so expensive? Last I checked early Feb? $12K, then $15K, now it is $17K and going at $18K. My posts must answer this question. Why? Readers are asking! And this is my hobby. My previous life as an Economist, pseudo, at Stanford hasn't faded, yet.

I was impressed!

I did arrive disappointed: yikes, demo day, INTERVIEW DAY! What is there to see but a show? I was ready to leave, yet I turned out to be super impressed...

It was interview day, few students have arrived at the normal hours - 9AM, may be 4? or 8 by 10AM. Yet the staff tables are filled. Though the most senior ones have yet arrived, there are at least 8 staff in front of their laptops. That's a lot of staff. Some setting up flowers, name tags for tables, cleaning up, and some just doing something at the screens ... the office space is beautiful, spacious, and very well organized.

I mentioned that to Tony, the founder, whose brother is the co-founder. The brother Marcus is a Twitter guy, and two other staff also has Twitter connection.  Tony casually confirmed that they make a huge commitment on the staff, but for me that was an understatement. After seeing other bootcamps, I realized immediately that the experience, stamina, and availabilities of staff here is unparalleled. Only Hackbright can attract a somewhat similar level of mentorship from real Silicon Valley programmers, because of the great cause and dedication of growing young female engineers. But mentorship and paid instructions aren't the same. 

Azat, another instructor, currently working at Storify is an experienced engineer who worked on mission critical features for the famous startup and also is an accomplished author Rapid Prototyping with JS.  Tony, himself is a self-made programmer, first in PHP, then Ruby and now JavaScript. He pointed out that Hack Reactor also houses authors of Angular JS, Marcus - internal training and rampup at Twitter.

The name brands of the instructors previous lives are staggering too: Walmart Labs, OKCupid Labs, Twitter, Adobe, Mozilla, Storify.  And Tony really deserves a separate post on his vision and management.

In this original Infographics - the Human Factor, I show the maximum number of students 25, surrounded by an estimate of staffs. 26 on payroll, that is 17 instructors 9 supporting staff! Wow!

These numbers will change, and now they are rough estimates. But surely enough, it was proportional to what I have seen even on the relatively quite demo day. Hiring real programmers with real legit Silicon Valley experiences, should definitely be a factor that sets Hack Reactor far apart from any existing Bootcamps, even the might Dev Bootcamp.

That being said, Tony has informed me that there was more than just staff. When he first answered my question about the price tag, it wasn't about staff yet. He has more to say. I shall cover that in my next post.

I know the staff is capable before I arrived. But what surprised me was the number - it is large. And the other WOW WOW factor: there's an inhouse online system that allows students to click on the office chart, indicate which table they are working at and that they need help. If the help they need isn't delivered right away, the screen will blink red, and just a few more minutes away, Tony's phone will ring! Wow.

Read the next related post : Part 2

Review Git Real Code School

This is the third time that I am going through Code School 's Git Real course curriculum, strangely it erases my progress every time I complete the course. I was forced to re-complete every time: first time trying to review Git for Michael Hartl's tutorial, the 2nd time before a Rails review, the 3rd time for my dev git starting this Monday.

Note, I have bought ProGit and just haven't gotten any where with this yet. Michael Hartl is great, but too repetitive. It will be great as a byproduct of your Rails study but not alone.

The best time to get started with Git Real the course on Code School is when you learnt the basics

• git init
• git add .
• git commit -m "this is my comment"
• git push

After you have gotten through this may be 50+ times (it's really easy, you can arbitrarily commit up to 50 times in a single silly application). Then it's a good time to start. 

Never make your beginner's day one work repo as your learning material. Always use a dummy project. When I start to work with company repo tomorrow, I will ask my dev lead instead and be careful not to tangle up the tree. 

Git can easily help you restore or wipe up 30% or more of your repo and really confuse you if you aren't careful. 

Git Real goes pretty quickly through the basics I just listed, so familiarize yourself with those first. Then when you are ready, get to know how to stage, unstage, commit, amend and abandon changes. What is the difference between soft / hard reset? 

The reality is, try not to reset that often unless you have to, and don't reset when you already pushed changes out to the open without discussing with teammates. 

Take it slow with the Code School courses. These are not exactly beginner level. I always think Code School as immediate beginner or intermediate, mostly great for experienced people learning new techs. If you do decide to subscribe, please use the banner above to support my blog~ Really appreciate your help. Any questions are welcome.

Need more opportunities to learn Git first? Keep in mind everyone's learning style is different. 

• Try Michael Hartl's tutorial if you are learning Rails, you can learn Git along the way. 
• Play this Git Game! http://pcottle.github.io/learnGitBranching/
• Learn Git Real on Code School (hopefully signed up using our referral :P )
• Learn command console via Treehouse (please also use our referral code ) - less recommended for Git learning now, but strongly recommend for any command line dev like server, Rails
• ProGit book tough read
• Codecademy 's brief blog post on Git and Commandline

Researching $$$ Web Development Bootcamp Hack Reactor [COMMENT TO ASK QUESTIONS]

Updated 1/4/2014
One Friday, I will departed on my brief research journey to Hack Reactor, possibly the most expensive web development bootcamp in San Francisco. It recently received a lot of press as an unique JavaScript only full-stack web development house. I will tweeted via @i_stanford +Dilys Sun  and blog here.

I took will take pictures, interviewed people, observed, and finally compiled a video out of it. I am not compensated for this trip, but I am invited as a special guest to conduct this research. Thanks to my video analysis on Youtube about Hackbright, a dedicated web development bootcamp aiming to give women engineers a career and skill boost.  to boost women engineers.

Read about my findings by visiting the two internal CodeSum blog posts about Hack Reactor below. If you prefer videos, I have embedded two 10-minute Youtube demos.

Summary: 

Without a doubt, Hack Reactor or HR continues to be one of the most expensive bootcamps in San Francisco, if not the No.1. A co-founder Tony defended that the HR venue is always open to students whenever possible and that the Hack Reactor hours are intense, the sheer number of hours of teaching and studying surpass other code schools. 

I also have my own opinions. I think the defensive case can be made with these seasons

• a high quality, large number of instructors ~10+ some with real developer experiences at prominent Silicon Valley startup powerhouses
• an unique practical curriculum with teaching tools, repos, and problem sets made by developers for developers. I especially was impressed with their interactive curriculum, where a lot of coding, debugging and investigation is involved. Hard to describe. Even the screenshots are well guarded.

Feel free to tweet to me or comment below regarding your questions!
Some already asked:
1. curious why Hack Reactor has such a hefty price tag?
2. what is the overall experience like
3. what's the venue like and the instructors
4. may be what's the selection process / interview process.
All your questions will be answered.

Updates: July 17 2013
First blog post has been published last week 

Review Hack Reactor Part 1 - The Human Factor

Review Web Development Bootcamp Part 2 Myths and Facts, surprising discoveries at Hack Reactor.

Video Review of Hack Reactor

More to come...
What would Hack Reactor say (as seen on their websites, please verify it yourself)? 
- High average salary for graduates
- Exceptionally high instructor hours, longer program hours
- Qualified team, real hackers, real developers (of course in reality, there are always student instructors, but the Hack Reactor connection to real startups is higher than average)

What distinguishes Coding Dojo from other bootcamps?

New content: updated today as a part of Q&A Web Development Bootcamp

PROS

• Skillset, fundamental focused
• Unique instructors, self-made examples, flexible learning
• Higher availability with more affordable price
• Good environment in South Bay, though far if commuting from San Francisco
• Proximity to high-way, downtown Mountain View (speakers and startups, accelerators)
• Proximity to Hacker Dojo, a vibrant venue for hacking in the local scene
• Great speaker series, beyond expectation considering lack of prestige
• Strong hacker, self-made, entrepreneurial culture
• Ridiculously strong record of being hired by the house! i.e. students to instructors

CONS

• Less emphasis on career building: networking, interview
• Lack of infrastructure on job placement and the prestige to attract employment
• Developers are entrepreneurial, probably less of fit to Silicon Valley modern web programmer scene
• Less fit and susceptible to Silicon Valley hip coding culture 

Old content: 
It is both good and bad that Coding Dojo has heavy emphasis on skill set building. Of course any time you spend on that less time on networking, interview prep etc... This is a good place if you know that you really want to learn hardcore development skills and get the ground running fast (the 2nd part is the nature of any bootcamp). In terms of job placement, Coding Dojo has had many speaker events, and some prominent speakers like Mark of Twitter Bootstrap, but because the dojo just started, the network is not as top notch as Hackbright and Dev Bootcamp, both of which have special places in the history of bay area bootcamps.

Personally, I am fine with skill based camps, because I have had prior employments which I did well, and I am mostly here to learn web development. While jobs are important considerations, at the end of the day, I will be fine if the Dojo does not help me find one. However, I'd also much prefer that it does help!

Anatomy of an http query string

Pam Foxs GDI San Francisco presentation screenshot showcases how to quickly breakdown a query string using simple formatting, separator of ? Which marks the beginning of a query string and then & sign which marks starts of additional parameter. The equal sign marks the parameter assignment

It depends on what the server expects, the query string may look different, but this simple yet practical way to see it clearer

A Formal Introduction to Twitter Bootstrap - full article

Ad. These ads support our blog! It's not free for us to research and write about big topics, but we gladly share this information with all the beginners! Please support us. Or just ignore hehe :)

Great gift for geeks : )

Sold at Our Shopify Store Last one






If you’re a developer, no doubt you’ve heard of Twitter Bootstrap. For those not familiar, Bootstrap is a front-end development framework that allows you to design and build a website in a fraction of the time it would take to create a site from scratch. It’s pretty much Silicon Valley’s prototyping tool of choice these days, making it an omnipresent and integral part to the tech industry, even if it isn’t exactly “popular.” Designers may look down their noses at Bootstrap because of its “cookie cutter” design, but more and more companies want developers who have an “Experience with Bootstrap” bullet point on their resumes.

On top of that, Bootstrap is the first truly successful framework for design and CSS. In addition to providing the tools for designing on a  960 grid system, responsive design, and JavaScript plugins, Bootstrap was also developed to look great on any platform or machine, which has contributed to making it one of the most popular frameworks for building modern websites.

Originally developed by two guys from Twitter, Bootstrap is the saving grace of developers everywhere. Most often used for prototyping, pushing projects to the finish line faster, and even for hackathons, Bootstrap is a great tool for showing the world your ideas and products without needing to spend weeks (or months) perfecting the front-end.

At the same time, that doesn’t necessarily mean that using Bootstrap is as easy as downloading a few files and installing some scripts. The framework assumes some prior knowledge of HTML and CSS, relying heavily on the use of CSS classes. Although there’s tons of documentation to help you overcome most hurdles, trying to sift through it all can be a little overwhelming, especially when you’re first starting out.

To lend a hand, we’ve put together a few tips and tricks--sort of a hands-on approach--for beginning front-end developers who want to use Bootstrap. These tips should help you become better acquainted with how to get started and apply Bootstrap to your next project.

How To Know If a Site Uses Bootstrap

If you’re not familiar with it already, you may want to learn how to use Chrome Developer Tools. You might’ve also heard it referred to as “Chrome DevTools” or “Web Inspector.” If you’re a Firefox user, then you have to install a separate plugin called Firebug. This in-browser tool is your best friend when working in the front-end. Not sure why this or that element isn’t where you thought it should be? Inspect it through DevTools and tinker/debug from there.

Where Bootstrap is concerned, you can use DevTools to find out whether a site you like is using Bootstrap or not. Just open the Inspector by right clicking (control+click on a Mac) anywhere on the page and selecting “Inspect Element.” DevTools will open up at the bottom of your screen, and you’ll be able to see the HTML for that page. Here’s where you should see the links to Bootstrap:

This method isn’t completely foolproof since many websites will host their files on their own servers, rather than pull it directly from Bootstrap. However, developers who are just trying to get their stuff out there will opt to link straight from Bootstrap in order to save time.

Another way to recognize whether a site is using Bootstrap is to compare it against the examples from here. If you’ve spent any time checking out the websites of software startups, then most of those examples probably seem very familiar.

Figure Out What You Like

Bootstrap’s been around for a long time, so there’s no sense in trying to reinvent the wheel when there are literally thousands of sites out there using it right now in a huge variety of designs and implementations. Most developers will just throw a Bootstrap site up to serve as a placeholder, but there are also plenty of others who take the “outline” and flesh it out to make it their own.

That’s not to say you should go around stealing other website designs. Rather, figure out what elements you like from other Bootstrap sites, and then reverse engineer that to suit your own purposes. Instead of trying to figure something out from scratch, you’re starting with a finished product, then teaching yourself how it was done.

Using the Source Code

When you come across a Bootstrap site that you like, but you’re not sure how it works, you can take a look at the source code to get a better idea. Right click anywhere on the page and choose “View Page Source,” which will bring up a page that looks like this:

Just like in DevTools, you can see the HTML working behind the scenes, but it’s a more complete view of the code that’s easier to scan through. When trying to figure out how the various Bootstrap components work, looking through the source code on a site is a great way to get a better idea of how the classes are working together, where various elements come in, and also helps you become more accustomed to reading other programmers’ code.

It’s perfectly alright to copy part of someone else’s source code when trying to build your own site, but also keep in mind that if it looks like something they created themselves, you need to give credit where credit is due in a comment. If it’s just a design element such as the proper way to format a navigation menu, then there’s no shame in just copying and pasting the same HTML from another site.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions

There’s a huge community of developers and designers out there who are ready and willing to help you if you just ask. If you’re not sure where to start, check out Quora or StackOverflow. Both sites have communities of users who are there for the sole purpose of sharing information with each other, and they both have categories of questions specific to Bootstrap. Odds are that the question you have has already been asked and answered by someone else, so it’s a good place to check out for specific questions you might have.

If you have any questions or comments about Bootstrap that you’d like to share with us, feel free to start the conversation below.

Conclusive note and call to action

Ideally all front-end developers and designers of modern web development should be familiar with Twitter Bootstrap basics. It's high in demand and popularity in the Silicon Valley, and the library works with practically anything HTML, CSS and JavaScript... that's practically everything, and of course Rails! It is useful in time pressed prototyping environments : pitches, accelerator demos and hackathons.

The Twitter Boostrap project was designed to be a toolset, originally for the use of the internal front end team, then designed to be an open source framework. Its growth history,setup and enormous success as a CSS framework ( rare ) are all worth examining in details. Maybe that's the academic side of me talking: it has all the traits of the growth progression and success curve of prominent modern web technologies. 

One reader asked for more structured practice and projects with Twitter Bootstrap. try treehouse with our referral http://referrals.trhou.se/yusun or our free YouTube channel theoptips. Videos also available in structured formats on http://learni.st and my website http://codediv.com (paid video instruction as a subscription package)