29 Jun 2014
@wetted_ashes @ablwr Just spent too much time coding and having so many excellent things to read thanks to #timezones— ¡ɹǝʍǝlq ʎǝlɥs∀ (@ablwr_ebooks) June 17, 2014 Once a Twitter bot has been configured, it has to stay running in order to stay alive. And for that, it needs a server. When I was debugging my bot, I was running it off of my computer and got notifications of activity in my terminal. This works if I...
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25 Jun 2014
For me, the hardest part of getting a Twitter bot up and running was negotiating with Twitter’s API keys and application settings. The primary reason for this was probably that I kept getting overly excited and jumping ahead, trying to finish the project too soon. I first set up an app by registering my primary twitter account. Turns out that wasn’t necessary at all, and I could access and download my tweets just by using...
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24 Jun 2014
When I accepted a spot in the Flatiron School Ruby005 class, I knew my social life and, uh, casual internet-browsing life (?) would be cut dramatically down while I would be focusing all of my efforts on learning Ruby. I didn’t want my friends to miss me too much (which is hard, since I also had to move from South Carolina to New York), so I decided to build a twitter bot that could tweet...
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16 Jun 2014
When working with Regular Expressions, I mostly ignored these optional suffixes because I didn’t want to further complicate an already complicated aspect of programming. But since there are only four options, I decided to take a break from other complications and break down what each regex suffix can do. i i stands for INSENSITIVE! But not like that jerk that cut in front of you when changing trains at Union Square this morning. It means...
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22 May 2014
Everyone who has been around me regularly for the past (???) amount of time knows that I’ve been all about learning to code as much as possible, and I’ve been roping a few of my friends into doing the same. So, a question that I get a lot is “Where do I begin?” There are plenty of good guides on the internet, but I wanted to write up my own guide, particularly targeted to archivists...
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12 May 2014
This post is gonna be super-cheesy. I wrote this on May 8th, which is an important day for me. I’m getting ready to do something kinda crazy. I’m quitting my pretty-swell job, moving across the country, packing up my stuff, leaving many of my wonderful friends, finding extended cat-sitters for my two cats, and plopping down some serious cash. For a 3-month immersive web development course in New York. Of course, there are some obvious...
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11 May 2014
Hello. I am starting this blog specifically to talk about my upcoming dive into web development. I have been doing “programmery stuff” for a while (a few months, a few years, 15 years, depends on your definition) but I start at the Flatiron School in 3 weeks for their Ruby 005 Cohort and am seriously jumping in. From some intense googling, I am under the impression that we may have to keep a technical blog,...
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09 May 2014
This is the most sincere “HELLO? WORLD???” I have ever made.
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09 May 2014
Leaving any job is hard. Leaving a job you really love is even harder. Someone asked me when I was turning in my notice if quitting was as cathartic as it should feel, and I said I felt like I was getting a divorce. Y’know. “I love you, but this just isn’t working.” My job is great. However, it is also stagnant. I found myself frequently on auto-pilot, even though a lot of my work...
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09 May 2014
I want to talk a little bit about how I decided to go with Flatiron School, the other schools I looked at, and the reasoning behind my decision. I don’t even remember how I first heard about these programs, but I was immediately super psyched on them. This is the kind of educational experience I was looking for instead of my other option: going for an LIS Ph.D or a Comp Sci undergraduate degree, with...
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