Web Developer

I'm writing this post a bit late because frankly, I forgot to write it on Sunday.  At this point in the program, Ruby has become my challenge.  I've been determined to not let it defeat me, lol.

Funny thing is, even though day by day I think I'm not learning anything, I actually am making a lot of progress.  I noticed it yesterday when I started working on Code School's Rails for Zombies course.  

I remember when I had worked on that course some months ago, I thought it was too difficult.  In fact, I though even Try Ruby was confusing.  But now, because my Ruby knowledge has greatly increased, those tutorials are much easier to understand for me. 

After almost four weeks in this program, I have personally found that working through online tutorial sites like Codecademy and Code School are not enough to teach me how to program, but they are a required prerequisite (in my opinion) to understanding the lectures and assignments that we get at the Iron Yard.

Everything we've been assigned for homework and projects in Ruby so far have been over my head.  All because I didn't have enough of a foundational Ruby background in order to be able to tackle the more advanced work that we get in the program.

So every day I've had to play catch up by going back and doing nearly every tutorial that I could find online.  And like I said at the beginning of this post, I was beginning to feel as though I wasn't learning anything, but I actually am.

When you are a true beginner, you hear the information differently than when you listen to it again with some knowledge.  It's weird. 

Two weeks down, ten more weeks to go.

We're starting to wind down on learning Ruby, and getting more into HTML and CSS.  But not before completing what I considered to be a pretty challenging Week Two project.

We had to create a BlackJack game in Ruby.  If you've already programmed before, you may say, "Oh, that's easy!"  But for a programming beginner, it was quite overwhelming.

Creating games (or anything) in code takes a fluency in a programming language that I just don't have yet.  So, I spent most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday working on my Ruby fluency.

I came across some really good online resources for learning Ruby.  One of my favorites is Tealeaf Academy's "Introduction to Programming With Ruby".  

After spending an entire weekend going through every Ruby resource I thought would be helpful, struggling to create the game on my own, then viewing my instructor's video that shows the way HE would do it, I realized a few things.

For one thing, there is no "one right answer" in programming.  It appears that I can design a BlackJack game in an infinite number of ways.

For another thing, Ruby has numerous ways to accomplish the same tasks.  Some ways are more concise or easier to read than others, some ways are more appropriate in certain situations, and some ways only work in certain versions of Ruby.

I also learned that the way that I approach and solve a programming problem may be entirely different from the method or approach that my instructor uses.  In fact, I'll go as far as to say that it is highly likely to be different.

I tend to be a very methodical, step-by-step type of person.  At least in the beginning, but then again I still drive that way, cook that way, lol.  I'm just methodical.

I think this is why I'm not developing a fluency in the Ruby language just yet.  I know it's been only two weeks, but we're moving fast.  There's no time to waste.

Yep, I did it.  I took the plunge.  I got accepted to the Iron Yard's program for Rails Engineering, and I decided to attend.  It started last week Monday, and so far, so good.  

We started off with 10 students, but unfortunately we've lost two students already.  The program is intense.  I would not recommend that anyone do this program unless you have at least gone through Codecademy's Ruby course, and that's at a minimum.

Even though the Iron Yard advertises that you don't have to know how to code before you start, I think that you had better know something.  Even if all you know is another programming language, like Javascript, that is much better than starting the program "cold" with no programming experience whatsoever.

Okay, maybe if you can learn REALLY fast, and don't need much sleep, then you can start this program without any coding experience.  That's the only scenario that I can see that would work.  The structure of our day consists of a lecture from 9:30 am to 12:30pm from Monday through Thursday, and then the afternoons and all day Friday are considered to be lab time.  It looks like we get three homework assignments and a weekend project every week.

Our very first homework assignment was to create a simple program.  It is easy IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CODE, but if you have no coding experience, you will feel like "a deer in headlights" when you see what is expected of you on Day One.  That's why I say that you need to have at least gone through Codecademy.

The students that are still here so far, all seem to either have some type of coding experience, or have a lot of determination.  I would consider myself to have a little of both, because I hadn't worked on the Ruby for a few months because I was focused on another side project.  

I have been enjoying learning about Ruby and Rails and am excited to learn how to create my own Rails apps.  But.

There is this nagging voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me that it would be an easier transition to learn PHP instead, since I've already been designing sites on WordPress (a PHP-based CMS) for years now.  

Also, one of my main motivations for learning how to program is to open up more "doors of opportunity" for me.  Whether I decide to find a job, freelance, or launch my own startup, learning how to program is an in-demand, marketable skill.

My old trick about using CareerBuilder to send me daily keyword-based job search results, to give me an idea of the demand for a particular programming language, is telling me that PHP is in demand.  In fact, the daily results for PHP Developers are matching the demand for ASP.NET Developers.  Closely followed by HTML, CSS, and Javascript (Front-End) Developers.

Ruby Developers are obviously in demand as well, though right now the demand is highest in particular cities, like NYC and San Francisco.  Houston, not so much.

Yesterday, I read an interesting article titled: "What Skills Employers Want In A Software Developer", and the reason that I found it so interesting is because it didn't say what I thought it would.

Based on what I read in this article, degrees and certifications are less interesting to employers, while skills and results seem to be what they are looking for.

Also, it isn't so much a particular language that they need; it's the skill to create what is needed in the language that they know, and/or the ability to learn any language.

Since technology changes so quickly, the "in" language today may not necessarily be the "in" language tomorrow (or next year).  You have to constantly keep your skills up and be willing to learn new things.

Based on the article, that would support my sticking to learning Ruby and Rails and mastering it, and then using those transferable skills to learn new languages as needed. 

This is an "old" infographic, but I thought it interesting.  I first saw it on Udemy. 

This infographic is what made me think about Python.  I have very limited experience with Python, except for a Python-based script that I use to format my ebooks for Amazon Kindle. 

From what I've read, Python is also a good language for beginners. If it's good enough for Google, it's good enough for me.

One thing I've noticed about programming...it can be hard.  And frustrating.  And sometimes you just have to step away for awhile before you pull all your hair out.

When I got back to my laptop, I decided to focus on pushing it to Heroku instead.   That went fairly smoothly, even though I had to add the new SSH key to Heroku by running:

heroku keys:add

Here is the RailsGirls Idea app on Heroku.  It's not ready yet, but I wanted to focus on something that might actually work for awhile.  I'm still not sure if I can update it, or if I will have to delete it and deploy it again.

The reason why I was having so much trouble deploying it to GitHub is because the url it was using was a HTTPS url and I needed to use the SSH version.

I decided to follow the Learning Guides on RailsGirls instead, because I need a little more hand-holding before I'm ready to work independently on creating Rails apps.  

The RailsGirls Learning Guide on creating a Rails app uses scaffolding, which makes it a bit easier to get started compared to the Intermediate Rails guide on RailsBridge.  After I complete this app, I'll go back and tackle the intermediate app on RailsBridge.

I've just reached a stumbling block.  I created the basic version of the RailsGirls Idea app, I created the repository on GitHub, and now I'm trying to push my app to the repository and I keep getting an error message.

git push -u origin master

is giving me:

error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing https://github.com/adriannem/railsgirls.git/info/refs

fatal: HTTP request failed

and I'm feeling frustrated right now because I've done a lot of different things to fix the error.  

I've changed the origin URL several times, I've generated new SSH keys, I've removed and re-added my commit to Git, and i just don't understand why it's not working.  I especially don't understand why it's giving an error because I've successfully pushed several apps to Git from this computer in the past.

Now, I want to start off by being brutally honest: I have no idea what I'm doing.  Especially in regard to Rails.

However, for some strange reason, I keep plugging along anyway.  It's like, there is something inside of me that wants to see exactly how far I can stretch myself.  I want to see if I can reach the outer limits of my intelligence...to see if there is some ceiling in my brain where I just can't learn any more new things. 

Besides all of that, coding is a lot of fun. :-)

So today I decided to tackle the Intermediate Rails track on RailsBridge.  We're supposed to be building a Rails message board. 

At some point, I must have subscribed to RailsBridge on their GitHub page, and I got notified that someone suggested that the jump from the Intro to Rails track and the Intermediate Rails track was too steep of a learning curve, and that there should be a track in between the two.  WHAT A GREAT SUGGESTION.  I'm looking at this new track cross-eyed. 

But hey, I'm on my own time, on my own computer, doing my own thing.  I can always delete it and start over if I make a mistake. 

So far I used Rails 4.0.1 to generate a new app called "blog".

I don't know how to insert code syntax into Tumblr yet, so I'm just going to do it like this:

[adrianne@localhost railsbridge_intermediate]$ rails new blog 

Then, you know you can always run Rails server to see how things look:

[adrianne@localhost blog]$ rails server

I'm not posting every step, just highlighting a few points.

Once I got there, I saw that I had to get rid of the index page and set the home page.  

So I created a new page in the home_controller directory and called it home_controller.  Not very creative, I know. 

I placed the following message in the home_controller file with Sublime Text (text editor):

<h1>Home Controller Static Page</h1>

Then I edited the route.rb file:

Blog::Application.routes.draw do get "home_controller/index"

root 'home_controller#home_controller'

I know I should have pushed this to GitHub by now, but I'm not confident that I'm on the right track yet.  All I can say is that setting home_controller as the static home page seemed to work, because now when I go to http://localhost:3000/ (on my local computer), I see the message: 

Home Controller Static Page

I'm still working through the lessons in the Dash app from General Assembly, and I've learned a few new things.

For the second lesson, we created a responsive blog design.  Here's mine.  I didn't change it much from the one we designed in the lesson.

This is the first time I've understood media queries.  I had heard the term a number of times before, but I never knew what it meant.  All I knew was that it had something to do with responsive design.

I used to design mobile sites back in the days when you had to design two versions of your site, and then add a redirect script.  The script was placed in the header of the desktop version to redirect your visitors to the mobile version of the site when viewed from a smaller screen.  It feels like ancient history.

These days, you don't have to design two versions of a site anymore.  You can simply design one version, and use CSS media queries to tell the browser to show an optimized version of your site when it is viewed on a smaller screen.

Last night, I found this cool site called Code Crew.  The basic concept seems to be a group of coding self-learners (like myself) getting together, pooling their resources, and offering support.  

I'm starting to think that NYC = Cool because all of the cool coding programs seem to be based out of New York.  If I wasn't from NY myself, I would be jealous.  I decided to join the Meetup group anyway, just in case I make it back home one of these days. ;-)

I think I found them when I was "googling" for project ideas.  I'm looking for projects that I can use to demonstrate my HTML, CSS, and Javascript/JQuery skills for my portfolio.