Author Archives: Catherine Riopel

Let’s Build Something

Hi ya’ll! Today I am going to show you a quick little video that shows some very basic Angular via a little application.

Ok, scratch that… I FULLY intended to upload a video but it ended up being like an hour long and I tried to edit it for like 30 minutes and was like… this is killing my soul.

Since the application is already made, I’m just going to tell you about it old-fashioned style. Are you ready? No? Ok, great.

The web app we are going to make is an application to help you pick something to eat when you have many choices but no idea what to pick (truly and shamefully a first-world problem). We’re going to create this application with Angular.

If you don’t have Angular, hop on over to nodejs.org and download and install Node. Why? Doing so will allow you to use node package manager (npm). With node we can manage and install packages to our Angular web application as well as Angular itself.

To install angular, head over to a terminal of some sort and enter:

npm install -g @angular/cli

Once this is done, we will have Angular installed globally on your computer.

Next we want to create an Angular app. Open up you favourite IDE and open the integrated terminal (if it has one) or navigate to the folder you wish to save it in through the terminal and let’s utilize the Angular CLI, enter:

ng new food-generator

This will create an application called food-generator:

Snapshot of the project Angular generated.

After the century it takes for Angular to set all this up for us (thank you), we can create a new component, let’s make a card to hold our things in:

ng generate component card

This gives us this:

Snapshot of the card component Angular generated.

Once that is done, let’s fiddle with the card’s HTML, creating the blueprint of our app:

Snapshot of the card component's HTML.

With that out of the way, let’s add some styling:

Snapshot of the card component's CSS.

Cool. Now let’s handle the functionality of the card:

Snapshot of the card component's class functionality.

This shows a list of food in the card component that we will choose from as well as the functionality of the button on click.

Alright, so let’s see the result. To do so, in the terminal, enter:

ng serve

This should take a moment as Angular compiles the code and sets it up to serve. Once it’s done, it will print out a message stating that it is being served on port 4200 (Angular’s default port) on your local host.

Navigating to www.localhost:4200.com we see:

Snapshot of the web app interface, pre-food randomization.
She ain’t much, but she’ll do.

Now if we click “YUM!” this is what we’ll eat for dinner:

Snapshot of the web app interface, post-food randomization. Chicken was selected!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Oh boy!

Mikey Mouse with his thumb up saying, "OH BOY!"

WELP, that’s it for now, perhaps at a later date I will have the mental fortitude to edit that hour-long video as it goes into more detail, but today is not that day my friend.

Be well, ta-ta!

👩‍🏫💻🍪🥤🗼💻🙋🏻‍♀️✌.

Dear Posiel,

So long, farewell, bon voyage. Today marks the last day of Poseil 😥 (emojis courtesy of Jim over at Slice of Jim, otherwise I’d still be googling emojis and Ctrl+c & Ctrl+v-ing them like a peasant… Thanks Jim!). As it is the last day, I would like to dedicate some of this post to how I believe (know?) my experience went.

Before we get into that though, I know the process prompt is supposed to be about community guidelines, but honestly, I feel like I could care less what What the Cat Said‘s community did (if there was a community in the first place). What exactly would I be guiding? Article commentary if there were any comments I guess? Write whatever you want! I don’t think that I will be moderating anything too closely as long as it doesn’t get all Ye up in here.

Young Kanye West wearing a shirt that says, "Say NO to Nazis New America"
🪦RIP

So with that said, run rampant, go crazy, start a fire, start a flame war, tell someone you love them, I do not care. Ok maybe don’t start a fire? Unless it’s cold and you need it for warmth, IDK, IDC. I couldn’t have made this section longer if I tried.

Ok, moving on.

Posiel, Posiel, Posiel… Where to start… This class has been one of the most laid-back classes, if not THE most laid-back class of my entire undergrad. Don’t get me wrong, it was work, but not the kind of work that sprouted a garden of silver hairs upon thine crown. It was fun, dare I say, therapeutic work.

With my CS undergrad, I don’t get many chances to be creative. Yes, there are opportunities to design and develop applications, but most of these projects have been group work, and not truly, solely my own. This blog is my own. These words are my own. These thoughts are sometimes my own, but they are also explanations of already documented topics in my own derivation (it’s something, ok). I like having a space where I can just be myself for a moment. This space is not something I’ve had before or believed I needed until it was in front of me.

From start to finish, these blog posts have been helpful in breaking the monotonous mould of code this, code that, and they have really allowed me to find a voice in something for the first time in a long time.

The random girl from the movie, "Mean Girls" that confessed her feelings to everybody. The text says, "I wish I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles."
“She doesn’t even go here!!”

Ok enough sap, after today I may still post here and there, but probably not weekly. Although I’m planning to take 4-6 months off after I graduate (burnout is my best friend) so maybe this blog will be more in the forefront of my noggin.

So, with that said, thank you for being there on this journey!

Adios! It’s been a slice, and I’m excited to see what life beyond graduation holds👩🏻‍🎓. Good luck with your life! Byeeee.

A picture of a very excited grad.

More Media? MORE?

(Week 12)

Hi all!

Right now, What the Cat Said is primarily a written blog. That is, I write things and I post them.

Shocked Pikachu face
It was between this an Owen Wilson going, “Weow.”

However, with POSIEL’s process prompt this week there is a great opportunity to shake things up a bit and figure out ways to incorporate transmedia.

I am sick right now so bare with me and my scattered, feverish thoughts.

All four of Charlie's grandparents lying in bed sick. Yes four.
As sick as Charlie’s grandparents. (Anyone else think it’s weird that Charlie’s grandparents all share one bed? Anyone? Hello?)

Ok, back on topic, to say that I ONLY have written things on my blog is a bit of a lie. A lie because, I have been encouraged through Posiel to post media that is not text, aka my video post, Instances, Objects, and Classes! Oh My! As well as my very polished audio snippet post, Talking about Linked Lists.

Would I incorporate these types of media again? Yeah, I think so.

It makes inherent sense to incorporate videos for computing science concepts because many people learn well visually and by following along with a video coding tutorial you can pause and repeat as needed. I have found that if I don’t understand something from documentation, finding a relevant YouTube video can do wonders in solidifying concepts that I’m iffy with. So, for the future of this blog, I can definitely see myself adding more video tutorials 👍.

As far as audio only media… I think that CS concepts can be lost when handling abstract concepts in an audio only manner. There are so many concepts that just NEED a visual, which is why I added images of linked lists on my linked list audio post. I think if I were to venture into more audio only content it would be in the form of a podcast discussing tech news and easily imaginable computer science concepts.

Otherwise?

It’s hard to think of media that I could or would want to venture into that would fit the overall vision for this blog. Integration with social media seems… weird for a CS blog? I don’t know. I started a twitter account for this blog but have not and frankly will not use it (Elon nonsense aside). Here is my reasoning:

A) I have a sneaky suspicion people who give a hoot about CS are not really on social media, and B) when I am looking up something related to programming or CS I absolutely do not and will not click any link remotely associated to social media.

I need the facts, give me those lines, give me that expertise only a 50-year-old grunt who is the single most integral cog in a legacy system that has no documentation holding everything in his noggin would know. I need that. And best believe, that good sh&nbspt is NOT on TikTok or the like. So, what else?

One could contest that CS content persists on reddit’s subreddit r/programmerhumor, but that’s the only kind of vision I see working with social media and CS, humour.

Meme of Elon Mush disliking elegant code in favour for less elegant code that does the same thing with more lines.
More lines equal better code, right? RIGHT? Doesn’t matter, you’re already fired.

I don’t know… Perhaps I am being short sighted. I think I will revisit this topic at some point to gain a better understanding of what is possible. For now though, I need to drink all the Neocitran I have and pass out.

Bye, bye!