Workshops for Junior Developers
Questions? Email me and I'll reply within a day: jeff@purpleworkshops.com
Office Hours
Available most Friday mornings.
$30 per 45-minute Zoom session. Only pay if you're satisfied at the end of our session. Book Now
Need a "lifeline" on a project? Graduated from a bootcamp but still stuck on some material? Working on The Next Big Thing, and you've got a bug you just can't solve? Or perhaps you're just feeling a bit discouraged and could use some friendly help? I'm available as your "professional lifeline" for sessions that can last until we solve your problem, or up to 90 minutes, whichever comes first. (We might code together, but official coding services are not included)
Simply email me a brief description of your question, topic, or problem. I'll let you know if an office hours session would be appropriate.
Computer Science: The Good Parts
Monday, Apr 7 - Thursday, Apr 10. 9:00am CT - 12pm CT each day.
$150 Live online small group, focused on helping beginners understand the basics of computer science for practical applications.
Computer science can be an intimidating topic to learn on your own. These beginner-focused sessions start from the beginning and provide a friendly, eye-opening view into some of the best aspects of computer science. We cover the most practical areas, useful for interview preparation and real-world applications.
The exact syllabus is customized for each group but generally topics include classic data structures (lists, trees, and graphs), algorithmic thinking, and recursion. We also get an inside look at computer memory, call stacks, garbage collection theory, "Big O" notation, and the best introduction to cryptography for beginners you'll ever encounter. Finally, we demystify practical things like SSL/TLS and public-private keys. If time allows, we'll also cover the shell, remote shells, and how to start your own server on a hosting service like AWS or Digital Ocean.
Day 1 (9am - 12pm)
GETTING STARTED
- Intro to Computational Thinking
- Binary numbers
- Logic gates and circuits
- Binary math
- Examples: Abstractions over binary data
- Examples: How call stacks work
- Examples: How variable "scope" works
- Consider the Following: Memory allocation and "garbage collection"
Day 2 (9am - 12pm)
DATA AND ALGORITHMS
- Classic Data Structures & Algorithms
- Why do they always go together?
- Arrays, Lists, Trees
- The "Famous Four" algorithms applied to each structure
- Complexity Analysis, including "Big O" and cyclomatic complexity
- Networks and Graphs
- Three famous network algorithms: Djiktra, A*, and MST
- Encoding algorithms: lossy vs lossless
- Data compression algorithms
- Algorithms for images, photos, sound, and music
Day 3 (9am - 12pm)
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
- Von Nuemann Architecture: memory, CPU, instructions, registers, and I/O
- The Unix Process Model (for Mac/Linux/Windows)
- CPU Processes and threads
- Shared resources
- Critical Sections
- Mutexes
- Hardware I/O wait cycles/interrupts
- Concurrency
- Parallelism
- Queueing Theory
Day 4 (9am - 12pm)
CRYPTOGRAPHY
- Symmetric encoding
- Asymmetric encoding, hash calculations, one-way hashes
- Examples: Base64, MD5, SHA-256
- Theory of Randomness
- How do Public-Private Keys actually work?
- Digital signatures
- Digital certificates
- Example: A peek at discrete mathematics and prime number theory
- Closing Thoughts and Wrap Up
React Fundamentals
January 2025. Exact dates TBA.
$150 Live online small group, focused on helping beginners understand how React really works.
Learning React is popular due to all to the job postings that seem to require it, but trying to learn solely from books or videos can leave you feeling like you don't quite "get it." You'll need to have some prior experience with HTML and CSS before you can take this workshop. But these beginner-focused sessions start from the beginning with pure JavaScript.
This workshop is a 3-day intensive in which we start with nothing but plain JavaScript and slowly morph our code into full React apps. By avoiding any "magic", you'll see the strengths AND weaknesses of the React paradigm, making it clear why other frameworks (like Next.js, etc.) exist at all. We meet once a week, with a small challenge assigned as homework between sessions.
We do NOT cover anything beyond React itself. This is intentional because React is hard, and every core concept should be crystal-clear before folks learn anything else.
Ruby and Rails Fundamentals
Monday, Jan 13, 2025 - Thursday, Jan 16, 2025. 9:00am CT - 4pm CT, with breaks.
$150 Live online small group, focused on helping beginners understand the basics of Ruby and Rails.
Tried a bootcamp or self-learning from videos, but missing the key "Aha!" moments that others seem to have? You'll need to have some prior exposure to Rails and understand basic Ruby syntax before you can take this workshop. But these beginner-focused sessions start from the beginning.
This workshop is a 4-day psychedelic trip through a wormhole, condensing a typical 10-week program into 4 days. It's all possible because we focus on the parts that beginners have the most issues with, using a combination of live coding and self-paced challenges.
You'll achieve the insights you need to finally make progress and brighten up your journey.
The exact syllabus is customized for each group (typically 2-4 people) but generally topics include understanding functions in Ruby, what objects really are, what Rails routing is all about, undestanding the entire HTTP request-response cycle, how to think about controllers, and demystifying models and the database layer.
