June 6 Web Dev Notes

Today I participated in my first hackathon ever! I joined Hack for LA for National Day of Civic Hacking, and here I am (holding up the sign) with some of my awesome team members:

Hack for LA 2015 hackathon

Today I learned:

  • How to reduce the size of a geoJSON file by simplifying the geometry of a map in QGIS
  • How to use the MapBox and ESRI Leaflet geocoding APIs
  • How to parse JSON data using JavaScript and jQuery
  • How to add markers to a Leaflet map
  • How to create and switch between multiple branches in GitHub
  • How to effectively use GitHub for a real team project

Whew! What a day! After 10 hours at the hackathon, I walked home and spent the whole evening moving more stuff to my new apartment and cleaning. And first thing tomorrow morning, I’m doing it all over again!

I didn’t have time to work on my meetup website project today, but at least I did learn about lots of other interesting stuff from a diverse team of map-makers, graphic designers, programmers and writers. I saw lots of my friends there, too! There’s no substitute for the experience of building a real thing to solve real problems side-by-side with real people! I hope I can find a way to make similar experiences a regular part of my life. That’s why I started the Learn to Code LA meetup group, so hopefully I can build on this experience to make better events and share the same excitement with my community.