BlackFemaleCoders

Name: J
Twitter: @codesurfer_ 

What got you interested in IT/Development? 
I’m a marine biologist and my husband an IT professional as well as a few in-laws, so I’ve learned by osmosis.  In high school I took computer BASIC and PASCAL classes (yes, I’m that old) but drifted away during college.  I’m working on a 2nd masters in GIS which requires coding skills so I’m relearning all things computer science again. 

What kind of devolopment work do you do? 
None professionally.  I’m still taking classes in coding related to GIS and have a few lab projects focusing on predictive modeling that I’d like to expand when I have some more time this summer. 

What are your favorite languages to develop in? 
Definitely Python is in first place.  Javascript is a close second.  Still need to wrap my head around Java and plan to take a Ruby class this summer. 

What would you like to see more of in the BFC community? 
I’d love to see some hackathons for those willing to mentor newbies.  Even virtual sessions would be cool.  Thanks.

Great ideas, J!  Would love to host a BlackFemaleCoders Hackathon one day!

Name: Tiffany 
Twitter: @2_funny

What got you interested in IT/Development? 
I have always been a math/language/computer whiz, but working as an IT researcher made me rally want to get deep into programming.  My Bachelor’s in Business, but decided to do a post-grad program for career changers in programming.

What kind of development work do you do? 
Currently doing projects for classes, but will be working on a geo-tracking system for iPhone and iPad during the summer for myself.

What are your favorite languages to develop in? 
Java and Python

What would you like to see more of in the BFC community?
More ways for us to get together, maybe meet, have MasterMind groups, jobs that are looking for diversity in their IT programs, jobs abroad, etc…

Nice to meet you and thanks for sharing, Tiffany!

Interested in sharing your story with us?  Submit your own “Grepping for BFCs” profile!

I was wondering if anyone following you is an UX/UI designer or if you had any information on what really goes into it.

From what I know of User Experience/Interface (UX/UI) design, it involves really understanding both how people think and how they conceptualize technology.  UI design is more specific in that it focuses primarily on creating interfaces that users interact with to perform specific tasks.  UI designers design usable (i.e. intuitive) interfaces for a system.*  UX is more broad; it looks at the overall experience of the users using a system.  It encompasses all aspects of the system that could affect the user experience: the interface, code performance, response time, visual appeal, features, etc.  Being a UX designer involves ensuring that all aspects of a system work together to create the best possible experience for the users of that system.  Both UI and UX encompass not only the design but also the testing of these interfaces and experiences.  Usability tests are crucial to helping designers gain insight into how users understand the system they are interacting with and how they would want to use it.  The practice of designing and testing is an iterative process and borrows research methodologies from multiple disciplines including psychology, sociology and computing.

Here are some resources I came across that might be helpful: Dain Miller sums up the difference between UI and UX pretty nicely in “UI vs. UX: What’s the Difference?”  Ryan Singer’s ”What UI Really Is (And How UX Confuses Matters)“ demonstrates the difference between the two using the example of an ATM.  Lara Swanson wrote an excellent article on improving UX through site performance, which gives insight into some of the details that matter when designing for optimal user experience.

*Another type of design, interaction design, involves analyzing the workflows of the users who use the system and designing interfaces that enhance those workflows.

Anyone out there a UX or UI designer who would like to share their insights?  Reblog or message BlackFemaleCoders!

Hi! I’m glad BFC exists. What is github? How does one use it? Thanks!

— queerandbrown

Hi queerandbrown!

Thank you!  I’m equally glad your blog exists!  We definitely need more spaces for these kinds of discussions and queerandbrown seems to be doing some really cool things.

Github is an online repository for code.  It is based off of the revision system Git which is essentially a large space to hold code and keep track of different versions of it.   This is especially necessary in environments where you have multiple people working on the same files: instead of each person maintaining their own version of the file and then coming together to piece all of their versions together manually, Git handles all of that for you.  It also includes “version control” which basically means you can maintain different copies of the same files from different points in time.  In other words, if you modify a file but decide later on you want to remove your modifications, you can switch to an earlier version of that file that you saved prior to modifying it.

Github is an online user interface that runs on top of Git.  Git is usually command-line (ie. terminal) based and Github takes all of Git’s functionality and incorporates it into an easy to use interface that runs on the web.  You have an account that manages your repos (aka repositories aka different “bins” that contain separate files where each bin represents a project) and you can use Git tools (committing, branching, etc) to maintain those repos and share them with other people.

To help provide some more info, here are some resources that hopefully will help:

Intro to Github

Git and Github Tutorial

Hands-on Github Tutorial (Thanks for the heads up, @ThatAndromeda!)

Various Git Tutorials for Beginners

I hope this helps and feel free to send me more questions if you have any!

Got questions?  I may have answers!  Message BlackFemaleCoders :)