As we advanced in our course to move from Flatiron’s LEARN IDE to a local environment using Visual Studio Code, I felt as if a whole new world of programming just opened for me. Immediately, I began to explore how to use the terminal, connect to Github, use DB Browser for my SQLite, and test printing something on the web using shotgun. I was excited to hear that we will need to create our first web application using MVC Sinatra application. We were also required to use ActiveRecord, multiple models, and user validation/authentication features. At first, I had many different ideas come to mind what kind of web app I should build. I realized that I was still in the early stages of programming and should not try to fly before I can walk. I needed a simple yet efficient application that would be practical and meet the project requirements. Being a team leader at my job, I have this obsession about process improvement. I always look for ways to make things bigger and better for our company. I remembered I created a suggestion box made out of a shoe box for our team and named it exactly that ‘Suggestion Box”. Employees were welcomed to slide their suggestions and concerns in the box anytime. It worked very well for our local employees. We were able to harvest many great ideas and implement them over the years. However, it was not working too well for our remote employees. They would have to email me their suggestions and felt somewhat disconnected from the process. This is when the idea hit me, I could create a Suggestion Box Sinatra application where users can have many suggestions, and every suggestion belongs to a user. The formula matched the MVC Sinatra project requirements! After doing much research, watching tutorial videos, re-reading Flatiron lessons, and many hours of relentless coding, my Sinatra Project was finally born. It has a welcome page that greets the user and offers them to sign up or sign in. Once a user signs up, they can log in, add suggestions, edit entries, delete entries, view others suggestions, and log out. Users may choose to post suggestions anonymously or with their real names. The application includes some pictures and devotional quotes to encourage users to express their ideas boldly. Throughout this project I learned a tremendous amount of knowledge about coding. This was a very rewarding experience and I am looking forward to the next project we will have to work on soon!
github.com/stroughk/sinatra-suggestion-box