Today is my official 100 Days of Code! 

Why? 
This was a task from my Udacity: Android Basics Nanodegree program to encourage students to actively find at least 30 minutes in the day to code. This would help keep the content you learn active in your mind and help you inch closer to your project everyday.

What I'm working on now
I'm currently enrolled in the next android class, Udacity: Android Developer Nanodegree with the current lesson on Intents. I'm quite familiar with intents already based on previous android courses I've taken, but it'll be a good review before I move on to my next project.

Worth it?
The short answer is: yes. Not everyday was easy. Much of my time was spent reviewing lectures, scanning through documentation and  filtering through Stack Overflow - sometimes just to find out that clearing my cache and restarting the IDE was the solution. When I bring this up to my coworkers and developer friends they all tend to respond in the same tone of grief, "Yeah... that's going to happen a lot". It's usually followed by words of encouragement that I'm not expected to know everything off the top of my head and that it's just too much information to memorize. However, being familiar with the code/structure/logic and how to find the answer is just as important. 

As a side note, I do want to say my face looks more like this after 100 days of code - interrogating my code ​to find out why my app crashed. 

Just started my second week of of my 5 courses in Java specialization through Coursera.  This is an intermediate level course which helps those that have some basic understanding of Java advance further into programming and data structures, 

So why Java? From my previous posts, I was at the cross roads between becoming a more technical QA Engineer or switching gears to becoming a Junior Mobile Developer (being on the side of Android). With Java, I can continue going towards my path of a software developer or using Java as the language to use for an automation framework.  However, I was introduced to a role I haven't heard of before - Software Engineer in Test.  This brings a strong software development knowledge into the QA role that goes beyond unit testing.  Well, what does that even mean - beyond unit testing? This includes automation, integration, scalability, performance and reliability as well as writing tools that would help both the software developer and QA.  I was told by a friend, don't throw away your QA knowledge and experience to become a developer, learn how to use development as a way to further invest in your QA career and skills.  That definitely wasn't verbatim, but that was message - and he was right.

Quality Assurance can be viewed differently among different organizations and it seems to be in par with how a company prides itself in upholding a particular set of standards. Not everyone takes quality as a pillar of support to uphold a company brand - similar in how some companies view security or customer support. Understanding how quality translates to a customer transcends the barrier of the value or price of a product. Take Apple for example, despite being a generally more expensive as well as being mentally conceived as more expensive, users are happier putting in a bit more money for the quality of a solid product in both design, hardware and software.. These are returning customers and quality is one of the major factors of such. 

Though equipped with python and some Java from the books I've studied from and the online classes I have taken, the class itself was initially intimidating, The first thing the class does is ask the student to take a short quiz to gauge the level of understanding you have of Java - and after taking it, I was a lot less cautious about moving forward and instead, a lot more excited.. 

I believe for any QA that wants to go beyond the black box, picking up a language is necessary. I personally believe that all QA needs to start with python if they do not have any programming experience - check out Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way.  I think paying the $40 to get videos alongside with the pdf is worth it, but if you don't want to shell out money that costs less than a video game, he does offer the pdf for free! After an introduction to Python, I highly recommend researching the language that makes sense for your current profession or your potential future profession. For me, it';s Java. 

Feel free to ask me any questions you might have about getting started in learning a programming language or your thoughts on QA in the software development industry! 

So I've taken a hiatus from my Java and Android studies, but I think my schedule has calmed down enough to allow me to get back on track. I'm currently using Java: A Beginner's Guide by Hebert Schildt - I find it pretty easy to follow and structurally well organized for me. However, jumping right into this book would have left me flat on the face if I had not picked up another programming language prior to this.

Python must be the easiest introduction to programming. as it is very human readable and quickly executable. I started off with Learn Python the Hardway by Zed Shaw. His teaching style is different from the approach of traditional textbooks in which he does a short example and explanation of the chapter and has you run through the exercises and have you investigate why certain results appear. This is the hard way - through self investigation rather than being fed information directly. I highly recommend anyone interested in programming to start with Python. 

So why Java? Java is the language used to build Android applications as well as many other devices out in the world. I started to work on my own app, but I still have a long way to go to make more complex and powerful apps. Now that I've taken up plenty of time stalling on studying by writing this post, off to make some coffee to pick up where I left off.