MakerSquare Day 29: First day on the senior side: so much to learn (7/1)

Today was the first day we spent on the senior side, which (as I said before) is both a philosophical shift (towards preparing for our final projects) and a physical shift (moving from our Brazos office to our Congress office).

Which might sound banal, but I'm a big believer in the effects of the built environment on people. So what effect will it have on us, I wonder, now that we've moved from the cod modernism of a big office building, with lots of glass and blank walls (and basement views), to the slightly warmer--but still windowless--office with the painted walls.

And on this day, I was struck with three thoughts.

1. Biking to the office rather than walking is a lot faster. Probably an obvious observation, but one which was driven home to me since I only now have a bike here in Austin. (My girlfriend recently bought a really sweet hybrid road/mountain bike, but since she's not using it, she let me borrow it.)
2. We know a fair bit of stuff already. Monday's task was to make a single-page application with a quiz, with a fair bit of wiggle room about what that quiz should be about or how it should be delivered. The goal was to think about MVC design pattern, where the Model, View, and Controller were all given their own design space. And there were lots of fiddly bits and some harder moments, but it all made sense and was doable. So it was striking to me how much trouble we would've had with this just a few days and weeks ago.
3. There's still quite a bit that we need to learn. Which was less striking as a thought because it's a thought I've had constantly for the last few weeks. After finally really getting the MVC pattern (which I'd heard of before, when I was dabbling in iOS programming), I went to a meetup to hear about functional programming in Ruby. See? There's always more to learn.

Maybe's that's why I like this stuff so much.