#100daysofCode - Road to Full Stack Development.

People often ask me “Do you wish you had chosen a degree that better translated into tech?” My answer is usually something like “ What better degree than one that recognises information technology as a force for real change, one which seeks to understand people and design solutions for them” My curiosity was curated by my degree and this translated into my career in Product Management. After being f exposed to Product management for the past two years, my desire for more knowledge has grown exponentially. Coming off from my brush with Fabio Brocca (which was fantastic by the way! I gleaned a lot of insights, and I am still working my way through them. As this is just a taste of what the PM circles is, I can say the whole team is off to a great start), I realised to fully transition into my very desired field, I had to build something. Now I don't have a portfolio, being privileged to come into the industry so young with no experience- as in zilch!, and with a great company that took a chance on me, all work I did was company based. I basically learnt on the job. Peddling this work and including it in my portfolio will put sensitive company information at risk. As a professional, I would never do that. SO what to do? This is a dilemma

Now, coming off this background and focusing on me, assuming my skill set to be an existing product. I want to create a product that targets customer pain points, while being iterated on and adds great value. I want to push out an MVP of an aspect(software development) of the product aka My Skill Set. My hope is, after this journey, to continue to iterate on the product after this process of continued discovery. To create what?? I don't have the exact details, but we’ll find out. How exciting! I’m trying to create/push out a competitive product in the market - I’m building on an existing product to create a new product. But rather than create a product with a whole bunch of features, I'll start small, following the Agile mindset.

Up till now, I have become conversant with some basic aspects of coding, sifting through tutorials and building mini projects, But as it feels a bit unstructured, I have decided to structure my learning and progress. Embarking on projects like this can make you feel heroic about some things and woefully clueless about others. I view this as a chance to set probable outcomes to perceived actions. I require, by the end of this journey, to have answers to this question, and not simply rely on assumptive knowledge - What is  the one thing I do really well that I want to continue to do? How am I going to stay in the habit of doing that? What is that one thing I need to improve at? What steps am I going to take to get better and how am I going to measure my progress?

I created a detailed roadmap to help me on this journey. It outlines what language I will be focusing on at specific days, links to resources I will need, this includes video resources and the duration of each video, and littered throughout is mini projects i’ll be taking on. Each day is planned in order to maximise the outcome of learning particular topics. 

All this story just to announce - I am joining the millions in participating in the #100 days code challenge. Participating in this challenge, I’m looking to broaden my knowledge on full stack development. At the end of this I wish to be armed with the basic Knowledge to create three things. 

1.  a User Authentication and authorisation application This is so as to learn the difference between authorisation and authentication. They are two vital parts of a login system. I'll learn user registration, store Information to a server, etc 
2. Build an application that uses an API. APIs are a crucial part of web development, i’ll learn to access data with a set of functions and interact with external software components, micro services, etc 
3. Build a Chat Application. I’ll Learn data transfer in real-time, authentication, security and much more. From research, I’ve gleaned this is a great way to exercise full stack skills.

I think it’s important to reiterate that prior to this I had little coding experience and I took the introduction to computer science course by freeCodeCamp. I believe this will provide me will the necessary knowledge of how to grasp the various concepts that I will discover throughout this process.

This is going to be the bane of my existence, the object of my desires, all I dream about night and day for the next few months. Kindly wish me luck, consistency and Growth! Thank you!