Hello,
Today I had the pleasure of attending the Vienna FreeCodeCamp meetup. We were a small group but I really enjoyed the discussion overall.
Pre-Meetup
Like most days, I was at work pre-meetup. But I felt much better going into this one than I did with others. I already felt that entering a community focused around something I'm quite familiar with would be a nice bonding topic. I felt calm knowing that I would most likely be surrounded by people either in tech, or like me working towards getting into tech. I didn't feel like I needed to prove anything but instead just had to be myself and show up. It's good to be more relaxed about them, it's a meetup not an interview. Yeah networking is a bit nerve-racking, but at the end of the day, things are much worse in your head than in reality.
The Meetup
I arrived an hour early. Circumstance was that I was just done work early and in the area and thought, "Why not?". I've been fairly early to every meetup so far, always being one of the first say three to five people there. I haven't been doing this on purpose but I think it's good to be there early; gives me a chance usually to talk to the host and maybe even the speakers.
When I got to the location today I met the host and we immediately started talking. I don't know what it was, maybe just the general vibe of a FreeCodeCamp meetup, but I felt it really easy and inviting to chat with him.
The presentation was about a side project that maps information about astrology to significant historical events. He allowed users to create an event which would trigger an API call to a large NASA database. This then worked in combination with Oracle APEX to save the data.
He went over some of the problems he faced, like parsing the data received from the API, and I was interested to see him and the crowd seem to work together to try and solve the problem. There was a nice collaborative and open atmosphere in the room. One thing I find common among programmers is that comments and advice are rarely personal. In most cases programmers just want to find a solution, and debate over the best way to do a given task. Being able to talk about these things openly and share ideas really inspired me.
Looking Forward
The main thing that stuck with me from the meetup was the opportunity to present side-projects. The online description and host made it clear that anyone looking to present something they're working on is free to do so. My mind immediately began racing about how I would go about presenting a project and what it would be about. I think presenting in front of people forces you to polish things up more. You're forced to boil down your thoughts and organize them so that you don't look dumb on the stage. I think it's a great chance for especially junior devs to get on stage and present. It helps you learn how to take feedback and how to express your ideas clearly. It's something I'm sure I'll do once I have a project to present.
All in all, it was a good day, glad I could attend the meetup and I'm more than excited for the next one. Thank you for reading today's blog. See you next time.