Week 13 to 17 - Learning with MCR Codes

My experience with @MCRcodes as a Quality Assurance Tester. This is an evening part-time coding boot camp based in central Manchester which runs for 24 weeks, from February 2018 to July 2018.

Week 13 (May 2018) - A new month, and a very heavy new topic ReactJS. The plan is to focus on this technology for the next couple of months, especially since it is a highly demanding skill. I've learned a lot more about the npm package.json file with better understanding, and all dependencies used by a typical React setup. Previously only had exposure to a small number of dependencies (jest & eslint), now learning about react, babel, webpack, and more.

Session 1 - Intro to React
Session 2 - React (Class, Stateful Components, Event Handlers)

Week 14 - Single Page Applications (SPA's) is amazing! I always thought front-end development means primarily knowing how to write HTML and CSS. Creating a webpage without ever having to reload the page, and after few (well lots) of practice, understanding the structure involves a lot more than just writing HTML pages (writing in JSX is so much fun). You're not just making separate web pages, but a whole application.

Session 1 - React (Bind Methods, Render Lifecycle)
Session 2 - Group Programming Workshop - Weather Forecasting App

Week 15 - Last month we have been working with API using Express and getting comfortable with the client request. Now we have applied this knowledge to work alongside with ReactJS. Nice to get the opportunity to use every we have learned over the few months and apply it to a real-world application. Finally get to use the MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node) stack.

Session 1 - React (Fetching data from an external API)
Session 2 - Group Programming Workshop - Surreal Estate 

Week 16 - Routing, routing, and more routing. If you haven't guessed, main focus this week has been React Routing where we get to build an application with the UI and URL are all in sync. The biggest challenge for me was now I am dealing with multiple files now, which includes working with both API and Frontend simultaneously, definitely need a solid understanding when it comes to good file/folder structure and this will help greatly when creating an application.

Session 1 - React (Forms)

Session 2 - React (Routers)

Week 17 - Never realised how much work goes into a simple Login page, I can easily spend a month on this subject. We all use some form of authentication on daily basis, and the amount of work going in the background isn't something we are all aware of. There's form validation, server setup, applying an authentication process, frontend setup, testing, and I'm pretty sure I've missed few more.

Session 1 - User Authentication - Signup/Login with password
Session 2 - User Authentication - JSON Web Tokens 

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Find out more about Manchester Codes - https://mcr.codes/