What did you do last week?

Last week brought some unexpected challenges, our baby was home sick and my wife threw out her back. I managed to make progress learning Entity Framework Core, .NET Core’s ORM (Object Relational Mapping) tool for working with databases. I completed a tutorial which demonstrated using EF Core with a SQLite database and explored two approaches: code first (C# Objects to Relational db) and database first (db to C# Objects).

I made a mini project based on routes from last week to persist data with a SQLite database. I started from scratch to help reinforce what I learned last week.

Although I did not get to any project planning documentation this week, I’m okay with that given the circumstances. I am considering taking a one week intermission from structured learning to focus on building and preparing for the project more directly.

What do you plan to do this week?

Originally, I planned on tutorials with user authentication this week but I decided to change it up. I want to dive into a topic that I am much less familiar with which is writing and using tests for development. I’d like to integrate testing from the beginning when I implement my project. I also expect to encounter other topics that could use their own week of learning such as error handling and middleware. We will see if I can get by with learning those topics alongside others.

Are there any impediments in your way?

No major blocks at the moment. I think the main challenge has been juggling different learning resources and finding the right one. I bought some .NET ebooks this week (there was a sale) and realized I don’t really have time to read them but perhaps they will serve as an additional reference if I am stuck.

Reflection on the process and improvements

While working on my miniproject I started getting a little messy and getting errors when I tried to compile. Debugging those errors actually helped fill in the gaps from the tutorials and reinforce topics.

Show and Share

No screenshot this week but I picked up a great tool from the tutorial. I really enjoyed using the SQLite extension for VS code and highly recommend it.