Bootcamp Week 3 – JavaScript and Peer Learning

This week’s bootcamp centered on JavaScript and research. On day one, we independently built an interactive web page, using JavaScript to manage forms, events, and API interactions. On day two, we shifted focus to research, preparing and delivering a 10-minute presentation on a topic of our choice.

Breaking Bad JavaScript Habits

One of my reasons for signing up for TechNative’s bootcamp was to eliminate any bad habits I had picked up while self-teaching. I found this week’s focus on JavaScript to be incredibly helpful in that regard.

I have a habit of using innerHTML in my JavaScript code, admittedly for convenience, but it comes with security risks, making code more vulnerable to attacks. As Pete, our course tutor, rightly pointed out, createElement is a safer choice - even if it requires a few more lines of code. I spent time refactoring my JavaScript for this project to use createElement and have been motivated to revisit previous projects to improve them using the same approach.

For my solo project, I created a cat meme generator using the CatAPI. I chose a simpler idea so I could focus more on writing high-quality code. There are still some features I want to implement, but here is my live application so far: Cat Meme Generator

Learning from Each Other

On day two, we focused on researching a topic we didn’t know much about but wanted to explore, ending in a presentation to the group.

I chose to present on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Previously, I worked in marketing at the digital accessibility charity AbilityNet. When I left the charity to switch to a career in frontend development, I felt strongly about embedding accessibility into my coding practices.

The aim of my presentation was to provide a brief overview of digital accessibility, introduce WCAG, and demonstrate a simple example of one of its success criteria. It was insightful both to deepen my own understanding of WCAG and to present on a topic I’m passionate about. I hope I also helped others learn and consider digital accessibility in their own projects.

I also found the other presentations in the class really interesting, as some covered topics I hadn’t explored before - such as Payment Request APIs, npm, three.js, and Object-Oriented Programming, to name a few.

Overall Thoughts and Learnings

This week was great for learning something new about other areas of web development that I had heard about but not explored in depth. It was also an excellent opportunity to sharpen my own knowledge in JavaScript and digital accessibility.