Monday of week 10 was demanding as we had lessons all day about the completion of a full stack todo app. In the morning we started with finishing the back end of the app. This required the successful use of Thunder Client to send/fetch data to a from MongoDB Atlas. For the majority of the day we had lessons on how to complete create the front end of the app using React. We were also shown how to display data (sent to the database) in the browser.
On the Tuesday, we were put into our final project groups for the first time. I was put into a group with Ollie and Vinnie as we had all designed individual app projects with reviews as a theme. We all discussed which idea to move forward with and chose Vinnie's idea of a movie comparison/debate app. We all really liked Vinnie's concept of making a movie app that focuses on the comparison of two movies at a time.
On the Wednesday, we were placed into our final project groups again and given a task to work on. We were required to fork a repository and then work as a group to correct/finish all of the code. We decided that I would be the one to fork the repository and add the other group members as collaborators as I felt the most confident with doing this. We then needed to all make our own branches to work on. Communication was key when it came to knowing who was focusing on what and of we needed to deal with any merge conflicts. So we could see who was working on each section, I made a Trello board (screenshot below). This activity gave us more practice at using GitHub branches, designating tasks, communicating and using Trello to stay organised in preparation for the final project.
On the Thursday we were able to start work on our final project. I made us another Trello board for the final project (see below). One of the first big challenges with the project was finding an API that met our requirements. It needed to be free, allow the fetching of large amounts of data and the fetching of both movie info and posters. I also began to make the final project file in VS Code in preparation for the next week. I started of by creating all of the back end files, and installing the necessary libraries, ready for us to complete at a later date. I also began to work on a database plan. Also, I created a Miro board to document our plan for the design/layout of the app. I thought this was important as it was something we had discussed in depth and may need reminders in the future.
On the Friday, we were unexpectedly given only half an hour to create a group presentation about were we were up to with the planning of our final project. It was therefore decided that we would each focus on presenting a different area of our progress. I made a quick PowerPoint presentation focusing on the use of the Trello board, and initial planning I had done for the database and app layout using Trello. It was interesting to hear what the other groups had been done so far. I was also pleased that we had settled on using the TMDB api by this stage as it meant we could focus on beginning to make the app.
