# AlexChiu - Full Stack (Level 2) Pathway **URL:** \ **Category:** Open Source Ruby Plugin (CA) 2021\ **Created:** [June 13, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122 "2021-06-13T21:20:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AlexChiu](https://d2nat51eddc6b4.cloudfront.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ab9353/32.png) [@AlexChiu](https://stemaway.com/u/AlexChiu)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122/1 "2021-06-13T21:20:59Z")
**Module 1 - Getting Started** **1) Overview of What I Learned** - Technical Area: - Learned about Discourse such as the the similarities and differences between Stack Overflow. Also, learned about the structure of the Discourse stack. - Learned about Open Source projects. Specifically, learned how to contribute to open source projects and write helpful mark down files. - Reviewed Ruby syntax - Tools: - GitHub - very useful to create any project because of version control and collaboration. - Discourse, an online open-source and forum based software - Soft Skills - Leadership: Team communication was a bit slow initially. I went ahead and created a shared google folder to be a one-stop-shop for our team to find information like meeting links, meeting minute notes, and other resources. **2) Three Achievement Highlights** - Learned more about GitHub and how it can be used, especially for Open Source projects. - Although I have previous experience with Ruby, I reviewed Ruby syntax to become more proficient. - Coordinated team meetings and information better. **3) Challenges** - Some team members not fully active and hard to get quick responses since team members are from all time zones. **4) Upcoming Goals** - Will complete Module 2 and complete the Self assessment. - Will further meet with team, host office hours, and be a responsible technical lead. ---
**Author:** ![AlexChiu](https://d2nat51eddc6b4.cloudfront.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ab9353/32.png) [@AlexChiu](https://stemaway.com/u/AlexChiu)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:20am UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122/2 "2021-06-22T02:20:51Z")
**Module 2 - Dev Environment Setup** **1) Overview of What I Learned** - Technical Area: - Tools: - Soft Skills **2) Three Achievement Highlights** - Gained some familiarity with the Ember.js framework - I have extensive experience with CSS, so learning how SCSS extended the capabilities of CSS was very easy to grasp. - Reached out for help and also learned about the Discourse testing suite. **3) Challenges** - The testing suite in Discourse can be very finicky and can just be due to the configuration of some gems in Rails. **4) Upcoming Goals** - Will complete Module 3 (create a styling theme) and complete the Self assessment. - Will further meet with team, host office hours, and be a responsible technical lead. ---
**Author:** ![AlexChiu](https://d2nat51eddc6b4.cloudfront.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ab9353/32.png) [@AlexChiu](https://stemaway.com/u/AlexChiu)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2021, 2:34am UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122/3 "2021-06-29T02:34:10Z")
**Module 3 - Developing Discourse Themes** **1) Overview of What I Learned** - Technical Area: - Also started to apply my knowledge of SCSS which made styling way easier for multiple components or nested components, but also the transition from CSS to SCSS was very smooth. - Although I use the Chrome developer tools to inspect HTML elements all the time, I did not realize you could do this on Safari as well. - Tools: - Soft Skills **2) Three Achievement Highlights** - Gained more familiarity with the Ember.js framework by building a simple theme - Discovered the ability to use developer tools in Safari! - Connected more with other leads and solidified a plan for our team to have more participation leading up to our plugin development. **3) Challenges** - Had a hard time selecting some components using the DOM. However, I later learned from one of the mentors, Keegan, that this is because some components are not rendered immediately at page start because they are ember components which have a different lifecycle. This problem helped me understand the ember components more and how to use the DOM more effectively. **4) Upcoming Goals** - Will complete Module 4 and complete the Self assessment. - Will further meet with team, host office hours, and be a responsible technical lead. - Will solidify a plugin idea for next week to start production. ---
**Author:** ![AlexChiu](https://d2nat51eddc6b4.cloudfront.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ab9353/32.png) [@AlexChiu](https://stemaway.com/u/AlexChiu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122/4 "2021-07-11T16:26:04Z")
**Module 4 - Advanced Discourse Themes** **1) Overview of What I Learned** - Technical Area: - Learned more about how handle bars help build themes. Specifically, handlebars help specify certain locations where a custom theme component can be added. - Learned about the Virtual DOM which is not only used by Ember.js, but other libraries like React.js. This technique helps build/load webpages faster by “diffing”, which means only changed components on the webpage will be re-rendered. - Tools: - Started to use the Safari developer tools to find exactly the components/ class names to target specific components. - Soft Skills - Leadership: this week was a bit more intensive on leadership since we are preparing for our final project (to build a discourse plugin). Therefore, the project lead and I discussed possible plugin ideas with our team and we voted to see which idea seemed the most interesting for us. I will also hold a GitHub workshop to teach/standardize a way for our team to work together using Github. For example, using branches to create different features and then creating pull requests. **2) Three Achievement Highlights** - Gained more familiarity with the Ember.js framework by using handlebars and Ajax requests to build a complex theme - Learned a bit more about Ajax. Not entirely clear on how they work just yet. - Coordinated with team pretty well for our project ideation and we solidified an idea. I am excited to get everyone productive into working on their tasks. **3) Challenges** - Had a bit of trouble coordinating ideas with the team members not present at the weekly meeting since everyone is in different time zones. Will need to set up a Jira account to coordinate tasks more. **4) Upcoming Goals** - Will complete Module 5 and complete the Self assessment. - Will further meet with team, host office hours, and be a responsible technical lead. I will also be adding in the Github workshop for this week as well. - Will solidify plugin tasks so that team members can sign up for them on Jira. ---
**Author:** ![AlexChiu](https://d2nat51eddc6b4.cloudfront.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ab9353/32.png) [@AlexChiu](https://stemaway.com/u/AlexChiu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2021, 3:02am UTC](https://stemaway.com/t/alexchiu-full-stack-level-2-pathway/8122/5 "2021-07-21T03:02:49Z")
**Module 6 - Plugin Development** **1) Overview of What I Learned** - Technical Area: - Tools: - Soft Skills - Communication: I was able to hold a workshop to teach about basic git commands and using GitHub for team collaboration which not many team members had experience with. I was also able to answer all the questions that my team had. **2) Three Achievement Highlights** - Built a simple plugin and gained a better understanding of connecting the frontend and backend - Successfully hosted a GitHub workshop to teach team about GitHub collaboration. - Created a preliminary task list for team members to start on. **3) Challenges** - The bigger team size will definitely pose a challenge. I will need to coordinate more with the project lead to get the whole team on the same page. **4) Upcoming Goals** - Coordinate with project lead - Create a final task list for a larger team - Overall maintenance to ensure plugin development is going well.