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Episode 7: Believe It or Not, Jake Still Has Questions

Published: Tue, Jun 20, 2023

(Auto-Generated) Episode Transcript:

Seth Whiting: Hey, I am Seth Whiting, and I'm a developer from Portland, Maine, and I've been coding for about 10 years now. And I'm

Jake Pacheco: Jake Pacheco, and I am a barber from Augusta, Maine, and I've been coding for about eight weeks

Seth Whiting: now. Cool. Cool. So this is, this is the the Jake show this time. Yeah. I've been talking a lot for the last several episodes, and I want to give some equal representation with

Jake Pacheco: taxation.

With taxation. Yes. I mean, he says this, but most of my things are probably questions, so. Right. I'll still be talking. Yeah.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. It might actually end up being more me talking. Yeah, yeah. Because of that. But

Jake Pacheco: yeah, I mean, whatever we, we'll sort it out, but at least I'll get my questions answered, which is positive.

Yeah.

Seth Whiting: Right.

Jake Pacheco: Finally, yeah, finally. Yeah, so I. So, yeah. How was your week?

Seth Whiting: Actually not good that we wanna bring it up on the podcast, but my, my uncle just died yesterday, so Oh no. I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, no worries. It's know, he was great, but you know, he, he, he, he, the circumstances were like ideal I guess.

So like, yeah. Yeah. It, you know, did it not feel

Jake Pacheco: like it, it didn't feel like really out

of

Seth Whiting: the blue, kind of, it was definitely out of the blue, but he was, he was like on vacation and like, enjoying himself and like, just had a heart attack outta nowhere and Yeah. Yeah. So,

Jake Pacheco: geez.

Seth Whiting: But I'm sorry, Seth. That's, I'm sorry to hear that, man.

Yeah, it sucked. But yeah. But

Jake Pacheco: that's a part of it. It's a great, great way to

Seth Whiting: start a podcast.

Glad

Jake Pacheco: I brought it up.

Hi there. And I'm Jake Pacheco. I've been,

no, if you want to reset it, I didn't know that. No, no, no. Okay. We're in it. Okay. Yeah. Beyond that though, I'm, I'm really sorry, Seth, about that. Yeah, thanks. Can hear that. But on my end, I suppose I've just been learning as much as I can. I started doodling around in and of course, now I'm gonna forget the name of it.

Stu visual. Yeah. Visual Studio Code. Yep. Which is a tongue twister if you don't use it every day, I guess.

Seth Whiting: You can just say VS code. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what people mainly refer to it as, but yeah. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: So I've been doodling around on that a little bit, just cuz I feel like I should know. What I'm, I, I should familiarize myself with the program that I'm working on.

Mm-hmm. A little bit on top of learning the actual code. Mm-hmm. So I've been working with that a little bit and I found that like super interesting. Yeah. Just in the y you know, in some of like the, the plugins that are there for it and stuff like that. Yeah. And I, I, I've also told myself already like, okay, don't get too carried away with this because it's like, it, there's so many helpers in it mm-hmm.

That I, I am concerned that I don't know, it, it, it, should it be a concern that it'll like, make me kind of lazy when writing code, you know what I

Seth Whiting: mean? Yeah, I know, I know what you mean.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah, because there's like things that, like auto finish things that, auto correct things and like, or like check your code and stuff like that.

Seth Whiting: Like, I mean, is that a, the only, I guess the only danger is like if they auto correct something and like, You don't know. You don't know what it just did, you know? Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: exactly. So that's why, that's why I'm like, I'm going to, you know, tread lightly on that. Yeah. But it, I still do wanna like familiarize myself with how all of that works.

Like, I, I hadn't realized until I messaged you about it because I started writing a few things, just like very short little things. Mm-hmm. But I would like go to execute and it was like, open your web browser. And I was like, I was so confused about that. I was like, I was like, wait, it doesn't work, like, like on Code Academy where it just has a console and it tells you what you've done and what you've on and stuff.

Right. So that kind of like threw me for a loop, but foreshadowing. But yeah, so so I don't know. I guess that's a question of mine. Like what, what is it? I, I. How does it correspond with a, a website or does it correspond with your console on your computer as far as like your terminal and stuff, or or how's, how's that work, I guess?

Yeah.

Seth Whiting: So in order to kind of access the, the, so this, this whole podcast, we've been talking a lot about JavaScript and focusing heavily on JavaScript. Yeah. The, the way that you are going to end up working with JavaScript, like I r l, is within the context of an HTML page. Mm-hmm. Even if it's like a React website or you know, any on top of any framework or anything like that at the end of the day, you're, you're gonna be kind of injecting all of that into an HTML page.

So the. Quickest and easiest way to like work with JavaScript is just to make an HTML page. Like traditionally you would call that index html just because mm-hmm. If you have a, if you have a file called index html, the browser will know that. You just want that to be the default. If you name it like cat page html, you have to access it by like slash cat page html.

If you do index, it'll just be at like what's called the root. So you don't need like slash anything. It's just, if it's index, it knows that that's the, the main page. Hmm. If that makes sense. So, yeah, I think it does and that's not super important to to know, but. It's just a thing that you can know and yeah.

And so maybe I should know it. Yeah, why not? Yeah, why? So if you, if you name it index at html and then, you, in order for it to be a, like proper H T M L page, you need like an open ENC closing H T M L tag at the top and bottom of your file. Yeah. And then normally you'll have an open and closing head tag and an open and closing body tag.

And everything in the head is all like meta stuff. And then everything in the body is like what you're actually going to see on the webpage.

Jake Pacheco: And when you say meta stuff, what do you mean by that?

Seth Whiting: Meta stuff is like if you're doing, if you're pulling in like Google Analytics to like track your website, like how many people are visiting your website and stuff.

Okay. You would, you'd put that in there, you would put your styles in there. That's like one of the main things that you would put in your head is, is your styles. So within the head tag you would open and close the style tags and then you can write CSS, as much CSS as you want within the style tags.

Okay. Ah, interesting. Yeah. You can also link out to style files. So like you could have like styles CSS and just link that in via style tag in your head of the, of the HTM O page. So you can either write it right there in the H T M L within the style tags, or you can link out to a, an external file that, that just houses all of your, your styles.

Interesting. And then in the, at the very bottom of your body tag is actually where you're gonna put your script files. And that's sort of, like strategic because your page is going to load all of your markup first, all of the h TM O first, and then mm-hmm. Look at this script. If you put it at like the top, then it's going to read your whole script first before it puts anything onto the page and it's just gonna slow it down.

Jake Pacheco: Okay. So it kind of cascades when it reads it. Yep. As as well. Okay. Yep. Huh. Interesting.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. Yeah. So all of that is just to say, When you have an HTML file with the, the script tags at the, the bottom of the body, then you can view any console logs or any like errors that pop up or anything from from then on in the browser's developer console.

And if you're on Chrome on a Mac, you would access that by option command I, or it might be option command C for the i. If you do option command I, it's gonna open the l like the inspector, which will show all of your H T M L on a page. You can do this, by the way, on any website out there that you didn't write.

If you just visit any webpage and do option command, I, it's gonna show you all of the HT m o for that website, which is a pretty cool trick. Yeah. But I think it's option command C. And let me just confirm that real quick. Option command C opens the developer console. No, that's, that's wrong. Good. Good start.

Yeah. That, that opens a console of sorts. No. Regardless if you open the Element Inspector, you can just, you, you can just switch over to the console tab, which is like mm-hmm. Right up there with the elements tab in like the, the menu that pops up. Yeah. And

Jake Pacheco: then with with Windows, you just kind of can right click on any old page and go to Inspect and they'll come up with that.

And then you can just hit the tab over to the console on there

Seth Whiting: too, right? Yes. And that works the same on Mac. Okay. There, but there's a hot key on Windows, which is shift control. I, we'll do, we'll open the inspector for you. Interesting. So on Mace's option command I on Windows is shift control. I, so, yeah.

Yeah. I just

Jake Pacheco: last night I actually found out about the like where you can, you can look at all of your H T M L code and all of the code in that, right? Mm-hmm. And I was doodling around with it and. Found out that you can like retitle things, so you can like have like a newspaper article that like says whatever you want it to say for Yeah.

At least on your screen. Yeah. And I was like, oh man, I'm going to make some meds about this.

Seth Whiting: Like something you can totally like hack somebody's page and screenshot it and be like,

Jake Pacheco: look at what they wrote. Look at these crazy googles. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Seth Whiting: yeah, yeah. You, another cool thing is you can mess with the CSS on anybody's page.

So you, like, if you wanted to make the background purple for any reason, you, you Yeah. Could do that pretty easily.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So basically those two things work together with your like vs code and that, like how does that work together? Is it, yeah. So is it something that's copy and pasted over or what?

Seth Whiting: So the thing is if you, if you, yeah, thanks for keeping me on track here.

I went way off on a tangent. I got you. If you, if you make a file in VS code and you just do like, Command n or control n on a Windows for creating a new file. Mm-hmm. And then you, you, you save that file as index html and you, you have whatever markup you want and in the body, and then you have whatever ever JavaScript that you want within the scripts, te script tags at the bottom of the body.

Mm-hmm. You can then go into like your file explorer and double click that index html file and it will open it up in your default browser. And then, and then you can, you know, fidget with it. Like any, any changes that you make to the markup or the JavaScript, you can, you can. Make any changes in your VS code and then go over to your browser, reload the page, and those changes will automatically show up.

Hmm.

Jake Pacheco: That's cool. I, I, I didn't know that that's, yeah, that's, that's wicked interesting, huh? Yeah. Yeah. That's wicked cool. I, I guess I, I guess in my, you know, like very, like baby brain when it comes to this stuff is I, I kind of imagined like if someone was like developing an app for a phone or anything like that, they would have like a kind of like half screen of like what the screen of the phone would be.

Mm-hmm. So then like, I'm like messing with a code and like changing things in real time on the screen. That's basically, I don't know emulating a phone or something. I, I, I guess that's kind of how I

Seth Whiting: imagined it would work, but I don't, that is exactly how it works. Hey, look at me.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So, so it is exactly how it works.

Just,

Seth Whiting: just, yeah. So if you're, if you're just working with. Like without any frameworks or any like package manager or what's the word that I'm looking for? Like task runners or anything like that. Mm-hmm. Which don't worry if you don't know what those are but if you're not working with like, anything like super fancy, you can just make an HTML file and do all of this stuff and just reload the page and you'll see your updates.

If you're working on a, like a modern. Application, you're gonna have things running in the background so that whenever you hit save in your VS code, it's gonna update things automatically. You don't need to reload the page or anything. Oh, that's cool, huh? Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Interesting. I had a question about that actually.

Mm-hmm. Like with like no JS or React or something like that, is that something separate that you have to download to the computer in order to work with that? Or, or like that, that kind of works within like VS. Code or something?

Seth Whiting: Yeah. Yeah. So Node is going to run basically in order to like access the code mm-hmm.

That you just wrote, you need to run it on a server. And you, you, when you're developing like what's called locally, which just means that you're not running it on anybody else's computer, you're just testing it out on your computer, you can spin up. The, like equivalent of a server on your own computer.

Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: I was gonna ask that. If you could just like make a, make kind of a faux server on your

Seth Whiting: computer. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Interesting. So you, so basically what that looks like is you just open your, like command prompt, a k a, like your terminal on your, on your computer. Yeah. And just run a, a node process.

And usually that just, that just looks like node slash script js or something like that. Or like, yeah, something like that.

Jake Pacheco: And, and, and the computer just intuitively knows what the hell that means.

Seth Whiting: Node node knows what that means. And you have to down, you, you do need to download. You do need to

Jake Pacheco: download.

That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I was wondering if it was like a thing that, like a package I had to download so my computer even understands what the heck I work from it. Do you know what

Seth Whiting: I mean? Right. Yep. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So you do need to download node. And then React is the front end framework.

And you basically, it's, it's very similar because React in, in order for it to like do the automatic updating and everything, it's, it's using like node processes and stuff, on its own. So like, it's sort of like running, running the server, but like, in order to access your front end code and, and it's, it's kind of kind of complicated, but basically all you need to know is like, it's just running processes that like listen for change changes in your files and then update things you know, on, on your web browser or if you're running React native updating your, like emulators like you said.

Hmm. Interesting. Instead of web browser, it would be the Yeah. The, or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Yep. Interesting. Huh? Yeah, I, I, I was just, I was just curious about that, how that like all talks to each other, I guess. Mm-hmm. And how it all like connects. Mm-hmm. So I, I mean, there's not really one direct question I have about loops, but I have a lot of questions about Loop just cuz you, you kind of hit home the importance of loops Yeah.

On the last podcast. And if you didn't listen to the last podcast, please go back and listen to it. But with that, like, why are they used so much? I guess because you said that they're, like, you end up writing a lot of like for loops and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. To make, like most of the things you make now is that like, Is that just a general rule for a lot of coding?

Or if I'm working with like like cloud-based code or whatever, like that kind of stuff. Am I, or cloud programming, like, am is that gonna be a completely different thing? Or if I'm working with, you know, developing, I don't know, more, like more just front end stuff, like just front end stuff, is that gonna have a lot of that in there too?

Like, is it, you know, is it a universal thing, I guess is my question? Yeah.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. You, they're, they're definitely gonna be, they're definitely gonna come into play front end or back end. Mm-hmm.

Mostly what, what I'm like steering you toward is full stacked stuff. Yeah. But even on the front end, like there's. I, I, I think it's pretty, pretty, like unavoidable that you would use them at some point. Mm-hmm. The main thing that, like, the main point I guess, that I would bring up is like, if you think about an application and you think about like the backend communicating to the front end and vice versa, what you're gonna be sending back and forth is data.

Mm-hmm. And data is

most often going to be in the form of like a list of users or a list of to-do items or a list of what have you. Dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Like. Cat pictures, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Movies you know, most data comes in the form of like lists. Mm-hmm. And the way that you work with lists is within loops. Through loops.

Yeah. Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: yeah. Okay, cool. I was curious about that and that's kind of my, what I figured it was. I'm like, well, yeah, because like when you do like, just about anything on a computer, it's asking for like, like, oh, if they clicked this, it's going to do this and this is going to like, direct them to this part and, you know, so it, it, it kind of made sense.

And then when I was talking to my girlfriend about it, Chelsea she, she was like, well it just seems like such a mountain to learn code cuz she's, it I've, we've been talking about her learning as well. So right. Again, possible foreshadowing. But I. But when we were talking about it, I was like, yeah.

I'm like, I'll just say that. Like between when, like the very first podcast to now. Yeah. And it might be unfounded confidence, but at my like negative number of amount of confidence that I had before, I feel like so much more confident that it's like attainable right now. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, okay.

It's still big. Yeah. But it's like, I, I feel like it's something that like I can actually learn. Whereas before I was like, I was confident cuz I could, I've, I've learned a lot of things, but it's like, it's was one of those things where it's like kind of unfounded confidence and, and just the idea of like, okay, via my own willpower I can learn this.

And now it's more of like, okay, this actually seems like I could learn this, like mm-hmm. Without having to suck my soul, drive any willpower that I have. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I. So I don't really know where I was going that went on kind of a tangent, but basically I, I was, oh, yeah, I was talking to her about like loops and stuff because of the, the mountain feeling that it feels like you're at the base of Everest.

Kind of. Yeah. And I was like, well, I think that the more that you learn and the more you start to like, recognize things written in code, like where you look at some, some code and you're like, Hey, I recognize what three of those things are doing. Yeah. You know, like, that's like a pretty exciting feeling, honestly, even though it's, you know, it, it's so small, but it's like, to me that's like super exciting kind of yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seth Whiting: Sure. But yeah. Yeah. Did you have any, like, questions that you have come up with like loops? Like things that are like still, I guess questions, like a direct question about it? Yeah. Well, just like things that, like you're still confused about.

Jake Pacheco: I mean, it's tricky because honestly, like verbally, I'm unsure how I would even ask the questions kind of a thing.

Uhhuh, you know what I mean? Like, it's more like, it, it would more be like, I'd need a diagram or something, and maybe I could like find a diagram that has helped me after this podcast. Maybe I could like post a link to it or post post it or something. But really it's just like the, the writing of them and how nested can they be and how, like, you know what I mean?

Stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And still I have a tenuous grasp on, you know, just what a like nested loop and then like multi nested loop and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. How that stuff even works together. I'm, I'm, yeah. I, I haven't really wrapped my head around it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I don't know. I guess that, that it, it, it's just, It's doable, right?

Yeah. Like loops are, eventually it'll click and I'll go. Oh, yeah,

Seth Whiting: yeah, yeah. I mean, loops, loops are probably like, like nested loops are probably some of the most like ominous things where it's like, you look at it and you're like, I'm never Yeah. Gonna like understand that. Or like, even if I do understand it, like I don't care enough to understand that kinda thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like just like my one piece of advice from the last podcast still stands is like if you, if you get out of four loops where you're working with like the index of each thing mm-hmm. It's a lot clearer, you know, to be working with like For each color you, for each of the colors, you have a color.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. Where it's just like a word that represents the item that you're working with at that moment. Mm-hmm. It becomes a lot clearer. Like, oh, this is what I'm doing, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of saying colors square bracket, I, then it's like, yeah, what the, what? Yeah.

Like what is that like? Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's but all it is is the current color, you know?

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's an ancient code skipper. I am yet to, to read it out like that.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Madagascar, it's, anyway,

Jake Pacheco: it's just this

Seth Whiting: classic

Jake Pacheco: Madagascar, classic Madagascar shout out Madagascar, but

Seth Whiting: Yeah.

But yeah, if you, if you. It, it's just like the syntax of a four loop is written so much less clearly than almost every other loop. But that's like the, the loop that everybody teaches you first and the the loop that everybody teaches you like the most. Mm-hmm. But just know that like you don't always have to work with four loops.

There are alternatives out there that are a lot better and a lot clearer. Hmm.

Jake Pacheco: Okay. So I guess in that then my question would be so is it something else that I'll learn how to, how to write eventually instead of like four loops? If that's not the thing

Seth Whiting: that I'm right? I would assume so. I would assume so, yeah.

I mean, so yes, absolutely. But I would assume that they would do it pretty quickly. I, I don't know how, like, how quickly Code Academy gets into it, but they, they sh they probably like right at the point where you feel like, I hate loops is when they'll be like, oh, by the way, you could just write it like this, and it's way easier.

Yeah, that makes sense. They do. Yeah. So, all right,

Jake Pacheco: cool. Yeah, it seems like they do that a lot. The the, yeah, the, the intimidating bait and

Seth Whiting: switch, right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is unfortunate, but yeah, I don't know. Like I, if I were them, I probably would make it like accessible first and then like, and then say like, this is what, you know, this is like the, the like harder version.

Yeah. Like, you know, you should know it because it's used everywhere. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: And, and you should, regardless. I'm, I'm picking up a lot of things that are like, regardless, you should know it, because eventually you might come across code that is written like this. Yeah. And in order for you to work with it, like how, how are you gonna work with something that you, you know, I gonna Google, I guess, but still, you

Seth Whiting: know, Yeah.

And it's also kind of good to know like what's kind of behind the easier things is like mm-hmm. These, these other like harder things and like, this is what, you know. Yeah. It has been replaced by like the, the easier stuff. Yeah. Not that four loops have been replaced. They haven't, like they're still out there, but they should be, in my opinion.

I hate that. Yeah. Are are they, are they easier

Jake Pacheco: things? More efficient as far as like processing and stuff or like quicker to like, come up with stuff than,

Seth Whiting: you know what I mean? No, no, no, no. It's just, but they're, they're not less, they're Okay.

Jake Pacheco: So they're, they're, yeah, they're equal, but easier. Okay. Cool.

Yeah. Good to know. Yeah. Yeah, I, I guess it, yeah, that, that was one thing that's just kind of daunting for me right now. But, you know, I'm just gonna keep. Keep going on and see if I can pick up more stuff about it. Mm-hmm. Along with hopefully those other things. But I was thinking about like, cuz you know, there's a lot of videos online about like what type of learner you are and stuff like that.

Yeah. And like a lot of the things that I learned are via either a video or reading on forums and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. So I know that a lot of people are like project-based learner learners where it's like, hey, you just have to do this thing. Mm-hmm. And here's your goal. Yeah. So I was thinking of like some project ideas, simple project ideas, because I know that like a lot of people are like, you know, make, make a to-do list or make a, you know, a schedule or something like that.

Mm-hmm. So me and again, Chelsea, were talking about it today about some different projects. I have my Mount Everest project that seems like unattainable. Yeah. And then I have like my baby project. I think that would, it would be a really cool thing that would help the reptile community actually, because like I've y you know, reptiles around the world.

No, I'm kidding. Kidding? No, no. But I have a bunch of reptiles and I have a lot of friends with reptiles rep. No one's talking about Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, yeah,

Seth Whiting: yeah. Shout, shout out to Mark Zuckerberg. The lizard king. Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: the lizard king. But no, so I, yeah, I have a lot of reptiles like right around 20 and that's only because I just sold about 20, so I have quite a few uhhuh.

And something that we keep track of constantly is feeding schedules, whether or not they did feed what they ate. Yeah. Different vet visits. I mean, some people take it really far with like, you know, bowel movements and stuff like that, which is like, I'm like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not keeping track of all that.

But, but people do keep track of whether or not like a snake refuses food and what they have been on and stuff. So I think it'd be very interesting and like, kind of cool for the reptile community, especially for like keepers of medium to larger size collections. If they could have like a an application that would, you'd basically have your pet whatever kind it is.

Maybe even throw in like suggestions for what they should be eating or when they should be eating and stuff like that. Just so it's kind of like a care sheet as well, because it'd be nice to just have it all in one place instead of having to Google constantly. And then have it so like you can like basically log whenever it's fed and stuff like that.

Because right now we're kind of left with like notebooks to do these things. Mm-hmm. Like we have like, You know, like 20 notebooks at my house, like just, just logging, like when everything is taken care of and how it's doing. So I think that'd be like a really cool application. It seems like it would be relatively simple.

The care sheet part could probably be added in later on, but like the, the basic idea of like a schedule for your animals you know, and I have some snakes to eat every week. Some that eat biweekly and like my big guy, my big boan sugar, like he, he eats like once every three weeks to once a month.

Mm-hmm. So to just kind of try to keep track of all of that, when did I feed them last and stuff like that. It would be super useful to have something that isn't just a calendar app, something a little bit more organized and geared toward I can click this animal and this animal fed on this day and stuff like that.

Yeah. And it seems simple, but is it not, Seth, what do you think?

Seth Whiting: So, It's not as simple as you'd think. Mm-hmm. Because it involves a, a database. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. So, but it's, it's totally doable. Yeah. It to me sounds like a React native project because most likely, like you're just gonna be like pulling something up on your phone and mm-hmm.

And like, putting it away. It sounds like more of an app, like on your phone that you would like open up and then close Yeah. As opposed to like a, a website. Yeah. But it would be easiest to do it as a website. Mm-hmm. One question I have about it that would determine what you use as a database would be, would you share with Chelsea?

Or like from your, like if you say, I fed this one, then you want Chelsea to be able to see that on her phone?

Jake Pacheco: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't know. I guess I guess that's a good question because Yeah, then you'd, I, I assume the reason for that question is because then you'd have, like, you, you'd have to have like your username and stuff instead of it all being on just your phone.

You wouldn't have it on e everyone's phone couldn't access my information with it. Right, right. I, I honestly think it would be fine if it was as simple as just having it on my phone or whatever. Mm-hmm. And yeah, so I guess it could even, and I don't know if this is a thing, but it could even start with just like, yeah, here's a, a useful app just for you on your phone and you do this.

And then maybe in the future make a, you know, actual thing. Mm-hmm. If people are actually into it. Yeah. But most reptile keepers are kind of you know, Kind of reclusive anyways. So, and it's kind of like their own personal information kind of a thing?

Seth Whiting: Reptiles themselves. Yeah. Yeah. A little

Jake Pacheco: bit like yeah, kind of cryptic

Seth Whiting: but under heat lamps all day.

Jake Pacheco: But I think they, a really useful thing as well would be if eventually it could have an actual, like, username and user database uhhuh,

Seth Whiting: then

Jake Pacheco: it would be incredible if you could then, like if I sold a pet, if I sold one of my reptiles, one of my, I could just give that information tr for that exact one over to someone like that would be, I mean, that would be pretty.

Pretty cool. Like, like the schedule? Yeah, the schedule. Like, yeah. Yeah. Everything just, I mean, any information that I have on that animal would be pretty cool. Like I said, right now we do it in notebooks, so it's, if it just feels kind of archaic and I haven't found something that works much better than that.

Sure. Yeah. I know. Yeah. It was, it was a thought. And like, and I guess this is, this is the funny bit where I say that was a little app that was like the easy one that I So you want to hear the hard one? Yeah. And the hard one now, now that you're bringing in like user databases and stuff, like, I'm like, oh, maybe the, the hard one is actually the easy one.

And I don't even know if this is relevant, but I think it would be, so I have a Visio soundbar, a Google Home, and a Samsung wifi speaker. They're all wifi speakers and I can't play all of them at the same time. Mm-hmm. And it drives me up a wall. Why isn't there an app that does this? Mm-hmm. And I've, I've heard it's because each of them come out at different somethings.

They, they each, they, you choose different like a different data type or something, but it's like, why can't you, like, if I can switch between all of those, then why can't I send to

Seth Whiting: all of those? Mm-hmm.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. I'm just kind of like, I don't know. I, I think that would be an incredibly useful app.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. The thing, the thing about using like third party things, like, especially like hardware is you cannot just.

Use it. They need to make, they need to make it available for like third party use, basically like for other developers to be able to develop things for them. They have like some kind of

Jake Pacheco: like open

Seth Whiting: project with their stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like an SDK or an api. So an API is an application programming interface, which is like, if they open up their data for you to, to, to work with it, then you can just kind of like hook into it and use it in your applications.

And S D K is a software development kit, I think. I think that's what it stands for, but it goes like a bit further. And like you can download something that like, works well with their, with their whatever, you know, whatever you're trying to work with. Like they, they give you like starter code to work with it and stuff and, and you know you just kind of work with it the way that they.

Allow you to. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Yeah, I

Jake Pacheco: was just, I was just curious about that, just cuz it was like, I, I, you know, like I'll just be listening to it one speaker and I'm like, I could have a whole home system if these things would just connect together. Right. And I think I, I don't know, whatever it is, what it's, it was just curious about it.

Yeah. So yeah, I, in any case Chelsea and I were talking about that in the car because we were talking about her learning coding, because when I first started on this endeavor she was actually going to learn alongside me. Mm-hmm. But, you know, just like with anyone, like, you know, after you get home from work and I, I deal with this sometimes where it's like I'm just too fried to like, do much.

Yeah. But I, I do have like a, a, I don't know, like a, a wellspring of like internal motivation. It kind of drives me. Yeah. So it helps. But I, I also never wanted her to feel like, Like, Hey, you have to learn this thing. You know what I mean?

Seth Whiting: Yeah. It's, yeah. There's kind of an interesting dynamic. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just, I've, I've also like nudged Sherry to like, Hey, maybe you should learn how to code. And like, she's like, I don't like my job. And I'm like, Hey, maybe you should learn how to code. And she's like, you know, whatever, whatever else. And

Jake Pacheco: I'm like, Hey, like you learning to go, this is like verbatim the, the conversations I'm having with them.

Like, I'm like, like painting a picture of this like, ah, imagine this life where like we're just, we, we get to just stay at home and just do our thing. Yeah. Or if we want to travel, we can go travel and you don't have to work at these, these jobs that are kind of a bummer, you know? Yeah. And if you hate your job, you move on to an next one.

It seems like that's what a lot of like software engineers do. Yeah. Is, you know So, yeah, we were like talking pretty deeply about that. And just like different, like motivators and stuff. And I wanna show her the podcast that we did last week. Mm-hmm. I think it was, was it last week we did motivators?

Or this was the week before?

Seth Whiting: Week before. Yeah. Well, it, it wasn't, it wasn't really motivators, it was just, just money. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Just, yeah. Yeah. So I want to get more into that as well. And because, like I talked to her a bit about like how much, like just doing this podcast is helping me and I kind of want to try to nudge her in the direction of hopping on here with us at some point.

Mm-hmm. If it's, you know, entirely kosher with everyone and if she feels comfortable with that just cause. You know, she, she's sort of introverted as well, so. Mm-hmm. But I think she'd be interested in it. I think that she would kind of have fun with it too. And like me, it, it's helped me so much to like, kind of keep up motivation.

Right. Keep learning. Otherwise you can't talk about anything, Jake. You know what I mean? And it, it, it beyond even that, like, it's not like Seth is like telling me to learn anything, but it's just like, it's that part, like before the podcast, I don't want to disappoint by like not having anything to talk about.

And then after the podcast, I'm so excited to learn more. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. It's, it's like, it, it's, it fuels the fire so much that I, I was telling her, I was like, yeah. Like I, I think that like, at the very least, you should listen if you like, and if she wants to hop on, that would be incredible.

Mm-hmm. But after us talking for about like an hour on a drive today Like,

Seth Whiting: she

Jake Pacheco: seemed super like into it and stuff, so. Cool. We'll see where that goes. I, I, I hope that she yeah, it, it would be really amazing if she, if she wanted to learn with me. Yeah, just cuz it's, it's cool to learn in a team anyways.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Just cuz if I'm not getting something, maybe she can explain it better and if she's not getting something, maybe I can explain it, but mm-hmm. It's, it, it would also be really useful because when we started learning together like. I kind of got a bit ahead of her in lessons cuz I was like, you know, just burning the midnight oil.

Mm-hmm. And and then she like st like I was waiting for her to catch up and when she was going through them, she was picking it up so much quicker than me. Mm-hmm. And I'm a hard learner. The thing is, is like, I don't just like, retain information instantly. Mm-hmm. It's, it's very much a thing. I have to read it like 10 times before it like really hits home and stuff.

Yeah. And I had this problem when I was in high school and grade school. Mm-hmm. I had horrible grades and stuff because I didn't realize that like, I have to actually be interested in the thing I'm learning, otherwise it just doesn't stick. But with her it was like, I mean, she types faster than me and then she like when, when she's like a actually coding, I was, I was like, Man, she's like blasting through this.

Yeah. The only times I would chime in was it was, I'd be like, do, do, do you want me to tell you what it's, and it, it was just like a ca a a capitalized a or something, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it was like literally just a simple thing. Yeah. But her code was written Right. Usually. So it was like, I, I just think that she would be a really great learner for it.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. That's also the way that I feel about Sherry is like, if she ever started, she would just like catch up and I'd be like, oh crap. Like, yeah. Yeah. Like an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. But it's

Jake Pacheco: like, I feel, I feel that way about a lot of people and I think that motivation is a really hard thing for a lot of people, and I don't know really why that is.

I mean, I guess if you don't wanna learn something, you don't wanna learn it, and that's that. Mm-hmm. And that's why I told her, I was like, Hey, if you don't wanna learn it, you do. You. Yeah. But she gave me the go ahead to start, like fueling the fire and like, you know, like kind of, you know, convince her to learn Yeah.

Every night. So, so, yeah. We'll, we'll see how that goes. But yeah, it's just I don't know it, and I, I told her today as well, I was like, you know, like when I first started I felt like this is like a, a serious mountain. Like, it's like mm-hmm. Absolutely unattainable. And now it's like, I feel like it's actually something that I could learn.

Mm-hmm. And I'm getting more and more excited about learning it. Like when I was even working in VS code and stuff, like, I was just like, I was having fun with it. Mm-hmm. I was like, this is actually really fun and like, kind of interesting and like Yeah. Yeah. It just like to learn the machine that, that kind of runs the whole thing.

Or like, I don't know that, that you use to actually manipulate the whole thing. Yeah. Cuz otherwise you're, you know, if you're in a code Academy or anything else, like, it's usually just like, Black and white, like boring and like it's mm-hmm. It's fun to have the colors and like to be like, oh, this plugin does this.

That's awesome. That, that is even available and stuff.

Seth Whiting: Right? Yeah. Wait until you get into GitHub co-pilot. Yeah. I don't even wanna tell you what that is yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Is

Seth Whiting: it pretty wild? It's, yeah. Do you know like, ha, have you heard all of the like, buzz about like chat G p t I think is what it's called?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard a bunch

Jake Pacheco: of buzz, like good buzz about it and like how to like learn code through it. But then I've heard that they'll, like, if you ask it to write code, a lot of it'll be kind of like like boxed, right? Like it would be

Seth Whiting: like really? Yeah. Like the main thing is like it's, it is using like ai, quote unquote.

Yeah. For Yeah. Learned AI or do AI do something like crazy. Yeah. GitHub copilot GitHub is, is a place where tons of people just host their code. That's like you know, it's called version control. So like, if you ever like screw up a block of code, you can be like, well it wasn't screwed up on the last time that I saved it, like, to the cloud.

So lemme just pull that down and like, you know, start from that. Yeah. Checkpoint basically. Mm-hmm. So people have just pushed massive, massive amounts of code up and GitHub copilot has like, analyzed all of it and brought it straight into BS code so that when you start typing something, it's like, it looks like you're trying to do what?

Like these a hundred people tried to do before you. Yeah. So here's what they wrote and it's like, oh, that's better than what I was gonna write.

Jake Pacheco: So, so insane. I think I've done a part of that already. I think I already, I think I've downloaded, I'll plug in that's similar to it anyways. Like, so like if I start typing, like if I'm like let Peter equal five and then like, I'm like console log P, and then it'll be like, Peter equals this or something.

Uhhuh it's like, Okay, so it's like ready for that. And then I just press tab and it copy and it just like writes the whole thing. Uhhuh, is it similar to that or does it write like a whole It is. I don't even,

Seth Whiting: I don't know what you're using, but it's, it is similar to that. And yeah, but often like when you start typing like a loop or something, it'll just complete the whole thing and be like, wow, I think you were about to write these 50 lines of code.

So like That's wild. Yeah, it's crazy.

Jake Pacheco: Do you find a lot of use in that? Or is it like, oh yeah. Do you still, do you still Yeah. I don't use

Seth Whiting: it every day. Yeah. Nice. But like the, the key though is like, I know, I know what it's doing. Yeah, of course

Jake Pacheco: not. Yeah. I'm not

Seth Whiting: gonna know. Yeah. I'm not gonna say the AI part of it, but I know like, whatever it's writing, like I can read it clearly and be like, okay, this is mostly what I wanted, but I don't actually want like these two lines.

Like, I actually wanna switch these up, so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes

Jake Pacheco: sense. That's, yeah, cuz I'm not gonna like, jump right into that. I, I'm not even really gonna jump into a lot of VS code or any of the plugins with that right now, just because I'm like, I, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

Mm-hmm. I want to, I want to know what I'm working with before I start having a computer For sure. Write some of it for me, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. But yeah, so so been doing all of that and mm-hmm. Ho and hopefully Chelsea joins. I think that would be a blast. Yeah. But that'd be great. Yeah.

Yeah. But she, we were talking and she's like, I want, like, I forget what we were, we were listening to or something. Or maybe she was just listening to me and I was just zoned out, but I was talking. Cause I do that sometimes. But I, she's like, well, that's what I want is someone to like, explain things to me and like, show me what it is versus, you know, reading like a textbook kind of a thing.

Mm-hmm. And I, I completely understand that. Like, that's that Yeah. Like I, I have a hard time sometimes just sitting down and reading something that is only fun because my imagination makes it fun with like, the prospect of being able to learn this. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. If it's not actually like, you know and like super enjoyable, then it's a hard thing to like click on.

Mm-hmm. To like actually sit down and do. So that brought me to, I downloaded a couple Udemy courses last night. Just cause and I had just like seen a lot of recommendations to different Udemy courses and mm-hmm. One kept, or a couple kept popping up and one was like JavaScript from beginner to mastery.

And then another one was a web development bootcamp course. It's like, I think it has like 65 hours of video or something like that. Mm-hmm. And it has like a lot of different users, so the q and a is very active on it and stuff. So I mentioned that to her and I was like, and I, I looked over it a little bit last night and I was like, this seems like, like actually like an enjoyable, like I, and that is no offense to to code Code Academy.

Like they're, they've been, yeah, it's been amazing. But it's just like, but as far as like. You know, seeing like, funny memes in the lesson, like, it's like, yeah. It's a, it's a different type of thing, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. For sure. And, and I'm hoping that that might be a little bit more useful

Seth Whiting: for, are those

Jake Pacheco: free?

No. They, they, they aren't, but they have like absurd sales for them. Okay. Like the, like the, like two of the ones I got one was like originally $150 and one was $180 or something like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then if you like make an account and stuff, it takes off a percentage. And then they were also having a sale, so that took off another percentage.

They were like $13 each. Okay. So it, you know, they're, they're very cheap yeah. For the amount of material you, material you get. And they have a lot of like, resources, so they like, you know, they'll be like, okay, in this lesson we're learning this, so like download all the, these few PDFs and download like, you know, vs.

Code for this time. Yeah. Cause we're actually gonna be working in that. So yeah. I wasn't sure if, is that, is that somewhat similar to like Like a regular bootcamp in the sense that it's like, do you watch like presentations on the stuff before you actually do it and then you, like, they'll say, okay, don't do this project.

Seth Whiting: Or is it, so when I was in the bootcamp, we, we were in a classroom and we had an instructor. Mm-hmm. We had like two, two or three instructors, but like, pretty much one of them was working, you know, with us at a time and they were basically like teaching, you know, like giving like a, a mini little like lecture for like, I don't know, maybe a half an hour or something.

And then we would do like a, a good, like half an hour of, of development and then back and forth like that. I think it was a while ago. So I, I think it was, I think it was like that. And then, you know, if we had any questions they would like walk, walk around and Cool. Look at what we were doing and. Tell us how dumb we were, you know, belittle us and humiliate

Jake Pacheco: us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just make them like really, really put the prods to you. Yeah. Put

Seth Whiting: us in the corner, give us the the dunks hat and Yeah. Yeah. It's a, of that it's a lot of fun. Making you feel bad about it. Yeah. No, not the, I'm totally making all of that up. But yeah, basically just that they would come around and be like, oh, you, you're, you know, you're writing it this way, it's, it's, you know, actually you're supposed to write it this way, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Very simple little corrections, wherever. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: The one that I, or one of the ones that I ended up with is a complete, complete 2023 web development bootcamp. Mm. And it's by Dr. Angela Yu. It just had like a lot of people that have used it and stuff. But basically what it covered, cuz I tried to find one that covered the things that, like, I know that you want me to learn kind of a thing too.

Yeah. Or that you've like advised Right. So it's H T M L and then into css and then into JavaScript and then it teaches you some node and react. Okay. And I think it had a couple other things in there also toward the end, but. Basically it's all optional and it's very much like, yeah, you select what you wanna learn kind of a thing.

But yeah.

Seth Whiting: So that's, it's, it's for, it's like geared toward beginners though, like starting from Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: yeah. Like from, from knowing nothing. Like, okay. Like, cool. The, the very first videos, they like my mind got blown last night realizing that there were wires underneath the ocean that went across. I always figured they used satellites or something.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I never knew that there was actually like literal wires that they sunk underneath the ocean going from continent to continent. Yeah. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah know here we are, 31 years old, old twenty, twenty three, thirty one years old. Call myself a computers person. Don't know how the internet works.

Well,

Seth Whiting: What is it, starlink? Elon Musk's. Yeah. That, that's all satellites. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. But, but yeah. I have it, I have it actually pulled up and I had a question about it as well was that I have the The course content pulled off. Mm-hmm. Eventually they get into introduction to Bootstrap or Bootstrap four.

Mm-hmm. And then Intermediate Bootstrap, something I should learn or? No. Good question. Because, because doesn't React kind of take over where that would've been? No. Is that what that is?

Seth Whiting: No. No. So yeah, we, we haven't, we haven't touched upon quote unquote UI frameworks before. Okay. So React is a JavaScript framework and it's good for like, creating your markup and, you know, it's like a good place to put all of your like, logic code and all of that.

What Bootstrap is, and there's another like competitor called Material ui, which is made by Google. Bootstrap is made by Twitter, and by the way, react was made by Facebook. All of these are like backed by big companies, so I didn't know that. Yeah, Uhhuh, it's, it's an interesting thing to know. Yeah.

But bootstrap is a UI framework and so is Material ui, and they're both basically setting up whole systems for how to style your webpages so that if you, if you're not really, if you're not a designer and you're just a developer and you want to make an application or, or a webpage and you want it to look good, but you don't really know any, like, design principles or anything, they've kind of like baked in a lot of like design principles into like pre-written code.

So it's like you can, you can use some of their You, you have to write your H T M L in a certain way, which basically just involves you adding certain classes, like bootstrap specific classes. But once you use the classes, then it ends up making your page look a lot better, like without you having to write a lot of c s s yourself, that it is just like a lot of pre-written c s s all you have to do is add their classes.

So they'll have ones that are like hard and it will be like white background with like curved edges, like the, the corners will be curved and there will be like a little bit of a shadow behind it, you know? Mm-hmm. That kind of thing. So it's like all just baked into it. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: I don't mean to interrupt you.

I was just wondering like, is this something that. I should hold off until like way later and just like, you know, learn it when I learn it kind of a thing. And just really just focus in on, I, I, I guess the question is with, with this, like I said, they start you off with H T M L and then c s s and then JavaScript, uhhuh, like, I should probably just stick with JavaScript currently, right?

Or do you think that it would be useful for me to be able to practice JavaScript by writing it with HTML and css?

Seth Whiting: Oh, definitely. I mean, like that, that's, you know, you're, you're, that's the only way to actually do it in the wild. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Like, do it as soon as you want.

Jake Pacheco: Okay. Yeah. I just, I, I just don't, I, I wanna, I, I, I guess what I'm asking is Sensei did I, is, is, is it Is it against the rules to go off track and like start learning on this?

No, no, not at all.

Seth Whiting: Like I would say just like, like you already, you already finished the Code Academy, like Yeah. Introductory JavaScript thing, right? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Then like

Jake Pacheco: they have the intermediate one that I'm like

Seth Whiting: three courses into as well. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And I can finish that

Jake Pacheco: one.

I, I suppose I, I think I only have like No,

Seth Whiting: it's, it's totally fine. Like, it is really like the introductory one. I just wanted you to get your head around JavaScript in general,

Jake Pacheco: you know? Yeah. And, and probably get used to typing any kind of code and like, like knowing what this thing

Seth Whiting: does. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And I knew that that was like, like, You know, a good like interactive introduction and Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: So like, it was, it was a really good course and I mean, a lot of stuff hit home. I was like I was saying before, and I forget if it was on or off podcast, but it's just like, it's nice to be able to look at some code and I recognize a few of the things that are written.

Yeah. It's like, oh, I know what that does. Like that's mm-hmm. Such an exciting feeling, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I, I, I think that they definitely did a really good job of that. And I will say also the introduction to the JavaScript course, they give you quite a lot of material. Versus when you go to the intermediate JavaScript, they kind of give you a, a bit less, unless you have pro, mm-hmm.

Which is, I think it's like 200 and something dollars a year. So, and that's kind of why I was like maybe I'll shift over to something that's, you know, yeah. That might get me

Seth Whiting: deeper into that. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, like one, once you've done like introductory JavaScript on Code Academy, like then, you know, do do whatever you want.

Like that's mm-hmm. And you don't even, like, if you're listening to this and you haven't done the introductory thing on Code Academy, like you've done any other like, introductory JavaScript thing, that's, that's fine too. It's just, I knew that that was like a good one and free, so that's, yeah. I like suggested it, but there's like, it's a huge, huge positive.

Yeah. And. Like also when you, when you brought up like the Odin project, I was like, oh man, am I like behind the times, like, is Code Academy, like

Jake Pacheco: they call out. I mean, they, they call out too. A lot of stuff on, I think Code Academy, but then also Free Code Camp. Yeah. Apparently is a really good one as well.

Mm-hmm. I've, I've read quite a bit about that as well being really good. And that one is like, entirely free with every lesson being free and everything as well. Mm-hmm. So yeah, I mean there's, there's a few different resources nowadays. Yeah. And I think it also just depends on like what type of learner you are and stuff like that.

I read some reviews on Odin project. It felt like people were like kind of drowning in it because it was like, Pretty difficult. Okay. But I also read that about, you know, the introductory introduction to JavaScript on Code Academy. Mm-hmm. Just because, you know, sometimes you're like kind of hitting your head against the wall trying to figure out something.

Yeah. And you Google like, is anyone else having a problem with this? And like, there's like, you know, 50 people that are having a problem. Yeah. Or like, this is hard, you know? But I don't know, you just kind of keep mulling along and like, and just try to like, all I did was like, I didn't really even. I cared that I finished the problem myself mm-hmm.

Enough to really try, like, it felt like a last ditch effort to see, see solution. Yeah. But if I ever hit that, see the view solution mm-hmm. Button, it was a thing where I was like, okay, absorb what it's telling you. Yeah. What does this mean? I'm not just copy, paste and done. Mm-hmm. Like I, I, I, I'm not done with it until like I've tried to wrap my head around the whole thing.

Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. And some six stuff sticks and some stuff doesn't, you know? Mm-hmm. But, but yeah, we're figuring it out on the way. Yeah. So yeah. And then I've been also

Seth Whiting: what was it?

Jake Pacheco: I mean, a, a lot of places are also saying that like eventually, like, and, and I guess this is a good question to ask with developing like web apps, applications and all this stuff, like, do I have to know any like.

Like Linux specific code or anything like that? Or will it just be compiled over to those things after, after the fact? So you know what I

Seth Whiting: mean by that? Like, well, I think so like the, the Linux specific code is like stuff in like the terminal that you're, that you're talking about.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. And it's what sql, is that what it is

Seth Whiting: or something?

Sql, yeah. Sql. So sql, SQL is a programming language that you, you don't write in like the terminal. You would, you would actually use, write that in vs. Code along with your JavaScript and along with your, your HTML and CSS and all of that. But they're like, nowadays it's actually. Less and less common that you will actually write SQL code because people have kind of abstracted it so much in a lot of frameworks, like what are called oms, which is object relational models, I think something like that.

Is that right? I could, I could be getting that completely wrong. But basically there's, there are ways to write code that is like basically will like write the sequel for you because it's like so common to write the same sequel over and over that they Okay. They just say like, just write this little block here instead of, huh?

This the whole SQL statement. So anyway. Interesting. Yeah, so.

Jake Pacheco: I mean, do you run into it often? Like, do, do, have you, like in your career, have you had to like, write things in SQL and stuff, or is it something that you never really got into or

Seth Whiting: didn't have to get into rather? Yeah, so back in the day, I, I wrote a bit when I was doing like some P H P stuff.

But I haven't, I haven't actually had to write straight SQL code for a while. But I think mostly that's due to the fact that I've been focusing heavily on the front end mm-hmm. And had backend developers that I was working with. So, like I, I am a full stack developer. I can make a full stack application like by myself, but, First several projects that I've been working on, they've been so big that we've had to split up between the front end and the back end, and I'm more comfortable on the front end.

So I'm just like, you guys handle the back end. Yeah. Cause that's what you've been doing for forever.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So kind of goes back to that. Don't ask an and engineer or an architect to do the carpenter's job that it doesn't

Seth Whiting: really make sense. Right? Yeah. I know that somebody who has been focusing on the backend for like their whole career is gonna be better than I am on the backend.

So like I, I'm more than happy to let them, you know? Yeah. Shine.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, so I, I guess I was just curious about that, like if it's if it's necessary to learn those languages and is it easy to learn like those languages, like, or any language that is other than like the three that we're really focusing on here is it easier once you know them, like to learn other languages?

Is it like, oh yeah, that's, this makes sense. It's just written slightly different.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. So. JavaScript is the, the programming language that we're gonna be working with. Mm-hmm. HTML and CSS are, HTML is hypertext markup language, but it's not necessarily a programming language. It's a, it's a markup

Jake Pacheco: language.

Yeah. It's like what everyone says. It's like, it's not really coding per se. It's

Seth Whiting: Right. Yeah. It is a language. CSS is a language, but they, they're not like programming languages like JavaScript. And I guess I, I don't know what the difference is, but I think JavaScript is technically a scripting language as opposed to a programming language.

But I could be like, maybe they're the same thing. Who, who knows? Yeah. But like somebody knows some,

Jake Pacheco: someone has corrected someone about this before. Yeah. I'm

Seth Whiting: sure somebody should correct me about this anyway, JavaScript is, A programming language. And once you know a programming language, it's easier to pick up other programming languages because they all do loops and they all do conditionals, I can tell you that.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. And they kind of run on the same principles, I assume, like in general.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. It's just like the way that you write them is different. So like it, Python, you don't use a lot of curly braces. Instead you, you depend on indentation a lot, so. Mm-hmm. This one is, this line is indented, you know, three tabs as opposed to two.

So I know that it's nested within the, the previous one, so I don't need any curly braces for that. It's, yeah, it's, it's nested because it's further in, you know. Yeah. I was

Jake Pacheco: reading or I was not reading listening to a podcast with the guy who created Python. Mm Oh wow. And Lex Friedman. I, I don't know.

I had never heard of him. I feel like his, his name seems super aggressive, but it was, it was a decent podcast though. It was, it was interesting and a lot of the stuff went over my head, but like they, the way that they were like describing a lot of stuff they, they like really emphasized in indentation and I was like, I'm like, I haven't noticed that being a problem in that.

Yeah. But obviously they're talking about that. I, I didn't, I didn't realize that that was that important in there. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz yeah, I noticed like it inden things, you know, like if you in in, in a body of code or whatever, like you're in indent underneath each line or whatever. Mm-hmm. But I, I guess I didn't realize it was, it was a completely different thing with

Seth Whiting: like Python and stuff.

Yeah. So you can, you can write JavaScript without the indentation. It's, it's really like for your own benefit as the Yeah. As the writer and the reader of the code. Yeah. Makes sense. But in JavaScript, it actually like means something if you, if you get in, in Python invitation wrong. Yeah. Did I say JavaScript my best?

Yeah. In Python. Yeah. I got you. Thank you. In Python, if you get the indentation wrong, then you get the code wrong. Huh.

Jake Pacheco: Wild. That seems like it could be

Seth Whiting: frustrating. Yeah. And honestly, like, also full disclosure, I have never written a program in Python in my life. No. I just know that about Python. Yeah. But I've written P H P and I've written JavaScript.

Those are pretty much the only ones that I like actually know. And then like, but I, I know that. I could pick up Python. I could pick up Ruby. Yeah. You know, because they're, they're similar languages to mm-hmm. JavaScript and php. Yeah. Some languages are not similar. It's like going from like, like like a, a romance language, like Portuguese to Spanish, you know?

Mm-hmm. That, that would be like, yeah, yeah. Like if, you know, a Latin language, JavaScript. Yeah. Yeah. But like, then there's like Mandarin over there and like, no way. Yeah. And then there's Russian

Jake Pacheco: and it's like, yeah. No, I, I don't, yeah, I, I heard that there's, because like I was I, I saw this like meme of different languages and it was like, it went to like, The deepest, darkest part of languages.

And there's like one language, and I forget the name of it, but it's just like a monstrosity and like they almost, or if anyone can even write it, like, I'm not even sure that anyone can actually write it. Cause it's just like such AI a difficult language to write. And I was like, I forget the name of it though.

It was, it was right when I was first beginning. Um-huh. That I, that I, I forget if it was a meme. I think it was a meme, but then like I, I looked it up on YouTube and like the guy was just like, yeah, no. Like, don't even, don't even talk about that language. It's okay. It's, it's almost like a, a like a a troll language.

Like a joke

Seth Whiting: language. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean there, there have been languages that have been written literally as jokes. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Which is kind of hilarious. Of

Seth Whiting: course they would. It's like, who has that amount of time? But some people do.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. PE People got time, man. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I want to throw out a few more things that were in that program just to see if they're something that, if I should really go full board into learning

Seth Whiting: all this stuff or not.

I, I didn't really cover, like the Linux thing that you were talking about. Yeah, yeah. So like, yeah. The SQL stuff and stuff. Yeah. Well, so, so SQL doesn't have anything to do with Linux. Oh, what is it? What is it then? That so if you're, if you're talking about like the, the, the terminal, like the, yeah, the command line,

basically, if you're, if that is what you're talking about, you, you do need to know it a bit. Mostly what you're gonna be using it for is a running processes that mostly will be in Node, since you're working in JavaScript, if you're working on like Python, it'll be like running Python on a server as opposed to Node on a server.

But, Mostly what you'll be using it for is just running processes like that, like starting up, things like that. And then B Git, which is version control. And that's, that's you, you'll use that a lot on, especially collaborative projects, but you should be using it on even just like personal projects just to make sure that you never lose your code.

Huh? Yeah. So yeah, what, what GI is like, I, I sort of touched on it before and I feel like I've sort of touched on it in other, yeah, we,

Jake Pacheco: we talked about it a little bit, but it, it didn't really get hit home

Seth Whiting: before. Yeah. So like a typical like workflow is like you write some code and then you commit that code, which just means like save it where it is.

And you, you'll have a, like a commit message saying like this commit in this commit. Or, or, sorry. So basically you would write, get, commit, and then quotation marks and what you did in that commit, so mm-hmm. Like implement the login functionality for the app, you know? Yeah. And then, and then you hit enter it commits the code, saves it, and then it, it's even safer and even better idea to push it up to GitHub or some other like host.

Yeah. Or forget. So like, get host. So the one is GitHub, that's like the, the most popular for like like mainstream. Yeah, just like whatever. Yeah. And then there's like Bitbucket, which is popular for like companies to, to host their stuff. GitHub too, but Bitbucket is, is like, if you're using that, you're mostly not doing like a personal project.

Hmm. And in my experience, yeah. And then there's other ones like GitLab and you could do like Azure DevOps, but all, all that I'm saying is you save a copy to your machine by committing it, and then you can push that, commit up to the cloud and save another copy so that if your computer. Blows up. Yeah.

You can get a new computer and just pull it right down and keep working from where you were.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like an auto save feature or something. And you could save, well, it's manual. You could save it just to your Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean like a save feature that you can save it just to your phone or whatever.

Or you could save it on your Google Drive and have it like, like a picture for instance. You know what I

Seth Whiting: mean? Yeah. Like an equivalent. An equivalent of that. Yeah. That's what I mean. But it's code. Yes. Yeah. It's not, it's, yeah. Yeah. So

Jake Pacheco: just so you don't, you know, a hundred percent photos. Yeah. So instead of like photos.

Okay. Even if I

Seth Whiting: it don't have your photos. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

Jake Pacheco: So you use a lot of get with

Seth Whiting: with the term, the terminal, the command line? Yeah. There are what's, what's called a gooey interface. And gooey is G u y graphical user interface. Mm-hmm. That just means like if you have a, a gooey for your.

I'm trying to think of like another, like popular one that would, you would have, I mean, honestly like your entire operating system is a GUI because it's doing stuff visually that's actually being executed in just code in, in the, in the background. Mm-hmm. So what I mean is usually you would do like get commit and then get push, but with like any of the gooey like interfaces, the graphical user interfaces out there that you can download, you can just like hit a button to commit and then just like type in your message and then hit save and then you can hit push and it will do that for you just like visually.

Interesting. Yeah. But it's. To me, a waste of time. And like, it feels so much cooler to be typing stuff into your terminal. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. And yeah, so it, it's that kind of thing.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. So I want to take it back a little bit back to when you said about you can kind of run just like no js in it and stuff.

Mm-hmm. So I guess would a good way to look at like Node or React or any of these you kind of download kind of like a driver, so the operating system recognizes that you can write in this. Is that kind of like how it, you know what I mean? Like, like it gives a computer ability to recognize mm-hmm.

That this is what he's doing or she's doing, they're doing, you know, it's, it's, yeah. Yeah. Is that,

Seth Whiting: yeah, I, I think so. Yeah, I think so. But yeah, basically it's like, it's like If you are on like a Windows computer, mm-hmm. Or a Mac, I mean, honestly, whatever. But like if you download a program like I'm trying to think, like, it's so hard for me to just think of a program for some reason.

Yeah. But like, if

Jake Pacheco: you like something Audacity, audacity,

Seth Whiting: audacity, you dunno, audacity. Sure. You could download Audacity and open it up and run it on your computer. Yeah. This is sort of like downloading. So that, that's like Audacity is a graphical user interface. User interface. Yeah. Yeah. But that's, you know, executing code underneath the hood and everything.

Yeah. And like so it's sort of like. I guess it would sort of be like the equivalent of that. You could probably have like a graphical user interface for Node where you just like hit a button and it's, you know, starts a process. Yeah. In fact, you could probably download that. Like I'm, I, I would be pretty surprised if you couldn't just Google node graphical user interface.

Yeah. I don't like, it's, it's all that would be saving you is from typing into the command line node. Yeah. Script js and then hit enter and it just runs. Yeah. So, yeah. So basically it's just like, whether you're downloading like a, a visual program or downloading like the command line equivalent of that.

Yeah. You know, it's just like, Downloading something for, in, in, in order for you to, to be able to use it on your computer. Yeah. But like I, you know more about drivers than I do. So I, it's

Jake Pacheco: just, I mean, I, I, I've, because I, I would do a lot of, like, I

Seth Whiting: like,

Jake Pacheco: Like command line, like Stuff when I was doing stuff with phones, so a lot of the memories are gone and stuff, but like mm-hmm.

You'd have to like, deal with a lot of different drivers and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And they had some like, like actual interfaces you could work with mm-hmm. To do it. Mm-hmm. But at least in the beginning when we were, were talking about like the galaxy Yes. Captivate and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. It was all done in like the terminal.

Mm-hmm. It was everything was done in the terminal. Mm-hmm. But they would like, you know, they would tell you what to like, put in and stuff, but you'd have like files downloaded that would grab those and stuff. Mm-hmm. But like, basically it's just like if you've ever plugged your phone into a computer and it just like doesn't recognize it, it, this isn't a thing nowadays, so just, I'm aging myself, but back in the day, if you plugged in your phone, like a lot of times we'd be like, okay, what, what do you want me to do with this?

What, what is this? Mm-hmm. It wasn't just like a, oh, file Explorer or pictures or what? It was just like, no, you need a driver for this. Mm-hmm. So then you'd have to go online and find the driver, and then it would be able to recognize the phone and understand what, what you were doing with it. Mm-hmm. So I made that connection with Node because I was like, well, like the computer doesn't know what it is innately.

Mm-hmm. You have to, you have to download a thing for it or like mm-hmm. Install a thing. So it has the understanding of what that is.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. Is that, Yeah. I mean, it could be, I, I don't know if it's more closely related to that or more closely related to just like downloading a program. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake Pacheco: But I mean, I think that they're pretty, I think they're pretty similar.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's a pretty similar analogy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a pretty similar concept. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Seth Whiting: But basically it's, it's like you, you download what's called a C L I, so the, there's like a graphical user interface is the G ui. Mm-hmm. And then there's something called the C L I, which is a command line interface.

Mm-hmm. Which is just like you're downloading a series of possible commands that you can now run to in order to like execute certain things in certain ways that like the, the, what you're trying to do, like, you know, you're downloading Yeah. The node C l I. Okay. All right.

Jake Pacheco: That, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that makes perfect sense to me.

Like that, yeah, that clicked. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's literally just like you're teaching the computer to understand the things that you're putting in.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah, so, so if currently I wanted to be like, okay, I wanna like, start working on a webpage or something, do I need to, like, will I need to like get that?

No, no.

Seth Whiting: It's just no,

Jake Pacheco: just because I'm not gonna be working with a front and a backend. I'm just gonna be working on the front end or,

Seth Whiting: yes. Okay. Yeah. If, if you're just working with a webpage and you're just wanting to see like, front end JavaScript, you, you know, like console logging things or like triggering actions based on like when you click on something, something happens, that kind of thing.

Yeah. That you, you don't need to, you don't need to run anything on the command line for that unless you want to save it to get in in Yeah. Case you, you just, just get on the command line. Yeah. But so you don't need get in order to, to start working on, on the,

Jake Pacheco: yeah. Yeah. So I guess then my question would be,

you only need, or my statement would be, so do you, on, do you only need like a node once there is a front end, a backend?

Seth Whiting: No. If you're running a front end, Framework that runs processes for you and checks for, like saves you know, every time you save a file. Oh, okay. So it's

Jake Pacheco: a, it's the, the whole get thing is when it becomes like, okay, now you need these things No thing.

No, the

Seth Whiting: no thing the no thing, yeah. Yeah. Not the get thing. The get thing is if you wanna save your, save your stuff and Yeah. Never lose any of your code. Yeah. The but note is like if you, if you want to run processes on a server on your computer, like, okay, spin up a server on your computer and, you know, do, do things like watch for changes in files and then trigger actions based on that.

Yeah. I, I am fairly certain that you need node in order to run that specific part of like a React application. If, if you're using like, If you're setting it up in the way that people normally set them up Okay. To like, listen for changes and, and you know, okay. Re render the page automatically. Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: that makes sense now.

Yeah, I was, I was like, okay, so I, I, I need it, but I don't, and like now I, now I get, it's like basically like the, the server side stuff. Like you really, you, you need that

Seth Whiting: for that basically. Yeah. And it's confusing because it's server side usually means backend. Yeah. That's why,

Jake Pacheco: that's why

Seth Whiting: I was having a hard time.

Yes. That, that is very confusing and I

Jake Pacheco: totally get that. Yeah. But I wonder if it's just for clarification, so there's like, No, this is the front end and this is the back end. Now kind of a thing, like you're, you're actually like like giving a title to it to what, what code goes where, kind of a thing

Seth Whiting: maybe.

Yeah. So when, so the thing is when you're, when you're running the server on the front end, like, I mean, basically when you're just running this process in order to check for file changes and saves, in order to re-render the page on your browser automatically, that's just for like when you're developing something on your computer.

Just for you for like testing purposes and like development purposes, it's, it's not going to be running that on the front end of your actual application when you push it up to the cloud to be rendered on everybody else's computer. Yeah. It's just going to, it's going to, when you push it up, before you push it up, you run a build process, so it, there's a different process that runs through your whole code and bundles it up into like one neat little package so that it's served onto the webpage in like a, a static form and.

At that point, it's just H M l css, JavaScript. It's not running like a, a server like you were doing when you were developing. Yeah. It's only running that server to help you out and like make things faster for you, it's, it's just like a helpful tool that like Yeah. The framework gives you, huh? Yeah. So, and, and it's, yeah.

I, I know that, that I didn't, that's, no, I just, specific thing is like really confusing because it's like servers that's, that's backend. But yeah. And,

Jake Pacheco: and in my head I was like, okay, to write, like, I, I guess I thought when someone pushes out an app or something like that, it's like, it's necessary that that app within it has like node and react and a bunch of other stuff in it that you're pushing out into the world.

Whereas it sounds to me more like, like, Node is more of a thing just so you can actually do it on your computer and then push it

Seth Whiting: out into the world. So yes and no. So Node is, is helping you out with your, your React development, you know, when, when you're developing locally, like I was saying, that's Yeah.

That all of that still stands. Yeah, that's what, yeah. But you're backend code that's going to be interfacing with your database and sending, sending communication back and forth between the code that's running on everybody's browser and the code that's running on the server. Mm-hmm. That's, that's interfacing with the, the database and everything that is actually running on a server.

That's like a process that is just like, it just goes and goes and goes and doesn't stop.

Jake Pacheco: Oh, so that, that is running on a server regardless. Yes. It's not just, just on my computer, but it makes it so I can use it on my computer without having an actual like server.

Seth Whiting: Somewhere else? Yes. Yes. Okay. Interesting.

Huh? Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: All right. It's, my head is wrapped around it. Sorry. Sorry you had to explain that multiple times.

Seth Whiting: No, no, but I mean, like, it's confusing. It's really confusing. So hopefully other people understand as well. Yeah, yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's, there's so many questions,

Seth Whiting: but,

Jake Pacheco: but yeah. And I, I don't want to go too, too far, too, too much time in this I, I, I think we're pretty deep into like an hour at this point or more. So, so maybe we finish this one up and unless you had any other thoughts on anything then?

Seth Whiting: I don't think so. Hopefully I just didn't confuse everybody like to, no,

Jake Pacheco: this is how it went for me.

It went, it was a rollercoaster, so it went, knew nothing, learned a little bit, knew nothing again, and then I, I, and then, and then it clicked. So it's like, right, it's, it's, it was, there was a confusing bit, but we got through it and now I think I, I think my head has dropped around it pretty well actually.

Like, I, I, I get that now. I think actually one more time back to so basically when you're writing everything in JavaScript htm, L C s s, like with like react, a node like that is usable on everything else, right? Like you said like React is usable in. What is it apple and Android and everything too, right?

Or is it just JavaScript that's usable in those two things?

Seth Whiting: So JavaScript is usable via a framework called React Native. Mm-hmm. So the, the thing, the thing is,

react code is meant for the web and it you end up using like divs and, and paragraphs, paragraph tags, like HTML markup in, in that. Okay. You, you write React native the exact same way, but you have to use like predefined tags for the markup. Okay. You, you don't use like the native H T M L tags you use, instead of divs, you use what's called a view.

Mm-hmm. And instead of. Paragraphs and like H one s, h two s like the, the heading tags? Yeah. You just use text tags. Okay. So there's views and texts. All right.

Jake Pacheco: So it's, it's very similar. It's just like small nuances

Seth Whiting: that change it to make it work with that. So when you write the markup that way, it then gets compiled into the way that iOS writes their markup.

Okay. And then when it's compiled to, to Android, it's compiled to the way that Android handles markup. Okay. So they don't use html, you know, on on, yeah. Yeah. Like native applications. Yeah, that, but like, if you write it as though you're writing HTML with React native, it knows. To compile it down to the way that, compile it down each of those.

Yeah.

Jake Pacheco: Yeah. Huh. Okay. Yeah, I was just curious about that. Just like how that, how that manipulation works, I guess. Uhhuh. And another

Seth Whiting: thing about React Native is there's a version, or not a version, but there's like a feature that's, there's still working on a lot called React Native Web. Mm-hmm. Which is like the views and the text tags will then be compiled into divs and spans and paragraphs and stuff.

So you can write react native code and have it run on the web. Yeah. As well as the other two things. That's cool. So it kind of Yeah. Yeah. Huh. But the thing about that is like, it's sort of limited in all three of those areas. Like you can, you can do so much, but at some point, if you need to use like a very, like iOS, like ingrained feature Yeah.

Then you need to start using like, plugins that are written in the, the, like iOS code. Huh. And then if you need to do it on, on Android, you need to start plugging in Android code. And if you need to do something on the web, I don't know if you can like, plug in web code to it or not. You might be able to.

Yeah. But I just know that it doesn't, it doesn't take advantage of all of like the features and in each browser. Yeah. Because every browser is different. So of course, it's basically just like, Doing the base stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You're

Jake Pacheco: asking a lot of it at that point to like be able to translate to all three of these things and make it work perfectly on all three of those things.

Even like, regardless of how Yeah. Difficult the code is to write or whatever.

Seth Whiting: Right. But it's getting better, you know, it's getting better every day. Huh. So that's cool. Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: yeah, yeah. I was just curious about that. It was just one final question kind of thing. Uhhuh sweet. Well yeah, as always, thank you so much, Seth.

I appreciate it. Of Yeah, of course. And thank you everyone for listening. We, we appreciate you listening and again, if you guys have any questions, just feel free to reach out.

Seth Whiting: Yep, yep, yep. We'll yeah, we'll have some sort of like outro by now. I'm sure that tells you where you can reach out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake Pacheco: We'll, we'll get to it. Yeah.

Seth Whiting: All right. Cool. Well, thanks. Keep, keep going. Keep trudging, keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Jake Pacheco: It's still intimidating, but it gets less intimidating.

Seth Whiting: Yes. Keeps swimming. Yeah. The more that you listen to this podcast, the less intimidating it'll be. Yeah,

Jake Pacheco: yeah, yeah. Let's go with that.

Seth Whiting: Yeah. It's us. It's just us. It's, it's mostly us. All right. Thanks. See you. Yep.