Flatiron Phase 5!

In the final phase of my program at Flatiron, I have spent the last three weeks creating my own full stack application. At the beginning of this endeavor, while I struggled to come up with an idea for my project, I knew I wanted to challenge myself to build a mobile application. Having spent the past 4 phases primarily revolving around web applications, I wanted to leverage my new skills to attempt something new. Additionally, I wanted to compare my ability to approach a new language now versus the way I had initially begun my coding journey on my own. After a difficult three weeks, I have a working prototype of PennyWise, an IOS application designed through Flutter to help users keep track of their spending.

My process throughout the development of this app was primarily twofold: general research and specific research. For the majority of the first week, I spent the most of my time watching various YouTube tutorials on different Flutter applications and basic introductory lessons. I kept telling myself I wanted to keep learning until I felt like I understood the basics, before I began my own coding. Obviously, one week is nowhere enough time to “learn” an entire programming language. Ultimately, I still felt overwhelmed at the end of my first week and decided to just start writing my own code.

Even in my short time in the field of computer science, I have already heard so many times that the best way to learn how to code is to code. I found myself truly exposed to this concept once I began to, seemingly blindly, write my own code using Flutter’s language, Dart. Following the guidance of my instructors, I sought to achieve small wins like simply getting all my libraries installed, to getting a screen to successfully display, to creating my first page, and so on. By following such a nuanced and targeted approach, I was able to more strategically spend my “research time” to learn more about widgets and tools I specifically needed, rather than blindly being overwhelmed with tons of new information. Although I relied extremely heavily on YouTube tutorials and ChatGPT, as I progressed through each line of code, each function, and each page, I found myself recognizing patterns and making sense of Dart. Although the first half of my project I was truthfully quite demoralized, it was invigorating to feel as if I had gotten the ball rolling through this slow, incremental process.

Having successfully created a working prototype, I am proud of not only what I’ve accomplished in this project, but what I have gained through this bootcamp as a whole. Comparing my experience with Dart to my first exposure to C, Python, and JavaScript, I found that the process of learning as a whole in this field seemed just a little bit easier. That is, rather than focusing rotely on learning more “languages”, I tried approaching learning in a more holistic way by building upon previous lessons and patterns to make learning “easier.” It is extremely evident that I still have a long way to go before becoming proficient in Dart, but seeing the progress I’ve made throughout this bootcamp keeps me hopeful in my ability to continue my learning as my career hopefully progresses in the future.