B'More Stunners: Puts “Hello World!”
Ready, Set, Go!
We are Ashley and Ore of team B’More Stunners!! We first met at our city’s local Rails Meetup and we instantly clicked. After both coaching a Rails Workshop for Women this past February, we decided to take the plunge and apply for the RGSoC fellowship (Ore was very convincing). Through our various connections within the tech community, we were able to assemble a team of awesome coaches to help us this summer!
We could not have gotten this far without the support of our beloved coaches, mentors, supervisors, and the community!
Who are we?
Ashley - I was born and raised in New York, but happy to have called Baltimore home for the past six years! Last year, I attended a Rails Workshop where I was introduced to Ruby on Rails. It’s safe to say I quickly became fascinated by the power of code, and I eagerly wanted to learn more. So, for the past year I dedicated myself to learning Ruby in my spare time. Although it has been quite challenging juggling a full time job and learning to program on nights and weekends, I could not be happier. When I am not writing code, I still find myself looking for opportunities to get involved within Baltimore’s tech scene. I avidly attend Baltimore’s Rails and Girls Develop It! meetups. My other interest include, attending my weekly book club with friends, running, and taking naps. Lastly, I enjoy exploring my beautiful city through its eateries, breweries, art galleries, and music venues!
Ore - I am a staunch advocate of increasing the visibility of women in the technology sector. Through my work with Women Who Code DC and the Baltimore Women in Tech community, I have a commitment to making the tech sector more inclusive. As a teacher for Code in the Schools, I provide quality computer science instruction to youth in Baltimore City. Last winter a good friend of mine told me about the Rails Girls Summer of Code fellowship. I was working through ruby koans at the time with my mentor Will Barrett, now an unofficial coach, and he encouraged me to pursue it. The hunt was on.
Starting off on the right foot
This summer we are working alongside the Bundler team to create a public dashboard that will showcase its metrics. This dashboard will provide programmers with information such as “What is the most popular Ruby version? What is the least and/or most used Bundler version? etc.” With these metrics, the folks at Bundler will not only be able to analyze this data, but also make precise decisions about future version upgrades. We are super excited to be apart of a project that will have a direct impact to the ruby community. As new developers this opportunity is a dream come true, and couldn’t be a better way to jumpstart our careers.
Struggles and breakthroughs
At the beginning we had a difficult time figuring out exactly where to start.Our coaches and supervisors were incredibly supportive and helped us solidify a plan. With everything going on in our lives, believing in our success and ability to persevere keeps us going through the hard times, and pushed us through the application process.
What we’ve learned
- Aspects of Agile Methodology for project planning purposes
- How to use a Public API and its request to the server
- The relationships between clients and servers, specifically within Bundler/RubyGems
- Our coaches are the best human beings on Planet Earth….
What’s next to come
- Create a new controller and route with Rubygems repository,
- Figure out where/how to display the dashboard
- Figure out how to Batch metrics to Librato Analytics API
- Stress less and continue to have fun! (ノ゜▽゜)
Be sure to follow Ash and Ore on Twitter! Annnnnnd, follow our progress this summer! (≧∇≦)/