Team Blog Updates

23 Jul 2020

Introduction

Now that I have become a full-stack developer, I decided to take a crack at fixing up our team’s blog site. The framework and design of the website was already in place but there were many bugs that needed to be fixed.

Skills

Even though the site was built back in 2014 and did not use any of the fancy front-end or back-end langauges that are common-place today, my knowledge as a full-stack developer were very useful. The site uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend and PHP+SQL for the backend. I also got a lot more experience with SSH and how to navigate through the file system on the server. I had dabbled with many of these as I learned coding and revisiting them with fresh eyes was very benefical. Additionally, the things I learned about website structure, specifically how to communicate between the front-end and back-end, was extremely useful as it allowed me to navigate the file directory and trace bugs with ease.

Challenges

Undertaking this was pretty daunting at first. Even though I had used Apache before, it took me a bit of time to get everything configured properly. There were some connection issues to the SQL database that hampered my ability to reload the site quickly. Additionally, since I was not involved in the initial development of the site, I had to navigate through the code to find everything. The biggest challenge, however, was my attempt to implement a file upload system. This had been attempted in the past but had never succeeded. It took me a while but eventually I managed to figure out the issue and had to SSH into the site to change some settings.

Moving Forward

With all of the changes I have made, the site is completely functional between year to year without the need for any programmers. This was my goal when starting up the development and in that aspect I am complete. However, I may try to add a couple more features or change some CSS to improve the look of the site. Lastly, I also plan to create a curriculum around the site so future developers can improve on it.