#rubymonk

First off, what is metaprogramming? It essentially is writing code that uses code rather than actual data, modifying the program as it runs. Better still, it's not just useful in Ruby, it can be used in Lisp, Java, and C# under various names.

Common Metaprogramming methods

#send: I was completely misinformed previously. Apparently, this command can take the method name as both a symbol and and string!

#method_missing: The method that is called when there is no method for a specific object. This method can accept multiple arguments (collect them all using the splat operator!) as well as a proc block.

#define_method("method_name") { |expected_argument| code! }: Will create a method with the method name and expected arguments. When making methods from words that might have spaces in them, use gsub (words.gsub('_', ' '))

#method(method_name) will pull up a method as an object. As with send, you can pass in the method name as a string or a symbol. You can then call #arity or #parameters on the method object. #arity will return the number of arguments allowed (an optional argument makes the number negative. If there are more than one optional argument, only the first is counted). #parameters returns of the arguments. Arguments are represented by arrays that say whether the argument is required (:req), optional (:opt), optional splat (:rest), or a code block (:block), as well as the name for the argument. These method objects are similar to proc objects, but are bound to themselves and only accessible to variables and objects within their scope. The #receiver and #owner methods will return the object or class that can receive the method (respectively).

#methods or #public_methods will return the list of public methods for the object and its ancestors (classes it inherits from). #public_methods(false) will return only the methods for the object's immediate class, and not it's ancestors. This can be useful for weeding out the many methods automatically inherited by all Ruby objects.

Class::const_get(constant_name): returns value for a constant within the specified class. The method will even find constants that are defined in classes inherited by the specifed class. This can be used to instantiate classes if you pass in the class name as the constant name.

#instance_variable_get("@var"): will retrieve the value of an instance variable without a getter method.

def inspect_instance_variable(class_name, variable) Module.const_get(class_name).new.instance_variable_get("@#{variable}") end

example of how to use #const_get in combination with #instance_variable_get to return the value of a specific variable

Reference

RubyMonk: A bit confusing at times (trying to figure out what to do in example code was almost as challenging as the material itself, especially when there was a syntax error an meaningless number lines), but provided an adequate introduction to metapgramming. Have to say, the AppAcademy curriculum is clearer. However, Last Airbender references make up for it!

Waking up

still no idea about async , how do things know they are finished?

Work

did a whole bunch of RubyMonk in a couple hours

loop within loops - Loopception

fall through

Getting formal instruction in web development is extremely helpful in learning what is necessary to succeed, and is likely why the boot camp model has grown more and more popular. That being said, there are a myriad of online educational tools that, if taken proper advantage of, can really be helpful in getting a grasp of new languages and best practices. 

Not every online tool is created equal, and I want to talk about a few that I've used. Some tools I looked to on my own, others I was pointed to by schools pre-interview, and others are part of the Launch Academy pre-work canon that I'm nearing the end of.

First off: Codeacademy.com. This is the first online teaching tool that I used. Dev Bootcamp pointed me to it before I interviewed with them. They recommended I complete the ruby tutorial, but I also completed some quick start, HTML and CSS courses. The first thing to note about Codeacademy is that it's free. This is great for someone who just wants to test the waters and see what coding is about without any financial investment. There are even some little courses that allow you to create a web page within 20 minutes to show you, in a way, how easy it can be to start learning these increasingly valuable skills. 

Another small, yet for me enjoyable feature, is the progress tracking. Just signing in allows you to get a consecutive day streak and there are medals for completing learning sections and modules. I found this to be rather fun (I'm easily amused) but also motivating. Because it's free it can be easy to stop taking advantage but these little progress carrots are effective incentives. 

Codeacademy gives the user a bar on the right that has some lessons and or instructions. A text editor takes up the majority of the page, and there is a small output screen in the top right corner. The reason I point this out is that it shows that the code you're composing is the most important thing. Also, the output box can be really helpful. It updates a webpage in real time and allows ruby programs to be run through it.

The challenges can vary from simple to extremely difficult, and while there is a hint function, there is no solve. As someone who can too easily be tempted by a, "Look at solution" button, not having that option forced me to look to other sources for help and made it seem that everything I completed, I did on my own. 

Ultimately, Codeacademy is the best.

The next online tool I used was Tree House at teamtreehouse.com. This is a pay for use tool that costs $25 (maybe $50 I can't really remember). This cost was covered for me by LaunchAcademy but it's important to note. Tree House is super slick presentation wise. You can see all your progress in the many skill tracks it provides, and the video production is really high quality. 

However, it is the video part that made me dislike Tree House. I know there are many different learning styles and perhaps this tool is for visual learners or auditory learners, but I found Tree House to move too slowly while not necessitating enough user input. The user input consists of answering small quizzes every once in a while, and on rare occasions, doing a small code challenge. Following along with the videos is also kind of a pain. I wanted to write everything that I was told to build a website yet found myself constantly pausing the video and replaying sections. I really just felt that I could learn better from a book, as it's much easier to circle back and look at material already covered than with the video format. I did learn some things in Tree House that I didn't learn anywhere else, but overall I felt it was too time consuming relative to the value. 

Lastly I'll talk about RubyMonk. There were other online tools that I used that were more specialized, namely Git Immersion, and they were all relatively useful. Git Immersion sticks out as a great Git intro and by far the best way to get a grasp on how to use Git and Github. So RubyMonk. I can think of a three word phrase that I would use but two of the words are inappropriate. (Hint: F this S). RubyMonk believes that you can deign solutions organically. While in a very few cases this was true, overall it just felt like there were way too many holes in what they were teaching you. I was already familiar with many of the skills being taught, and even still it was difficult to get the correct answer. Furthermore, there is a way too tempting "show solution" button that is in many ways, the only way to progress. Now, I don't want to complain too much because I'm sure this Zen approach is useful for some. But really, on some of the problems it won't tell you what you need to do until you run your code. In the errors it will tell you need certain names like Chewbacca to be input rather than the name you chose. Why is this? I don't know, but I don't like it.  Lastly, in the quiz section, some of the solutions use really useful looking methods that were never talked about. I would love to learn about these but had to go to other sources to figure out how and why they worked. Anyway, that's RubyMonk. I'd say give it a try, and if you can complete the Ruby Primer without getting frustrated, you should probably try to find a career in web development.

This is an extremely brief overview of only an extremely small percentage of what's available. My rankings are Codeacademy, Tree House then RubyMonk. 

Google searching should not be overlooked as a tool, and is probably the most common tool I use to solve any problem I'm presented with. One site that appears quite often is stackoverflow.com and they have great question and answer content. 

I've been doing RubyMonk tutorials which have been really helpful and challenging. However...the one thing I'm getting tired of is constantly being insulted by RubyMonk when I get the practice problems wrong. RubyMonk always tells me stuff like:

"The path to enlightenment is a little long."

"Wax on... wax off. Wax on... wax off."

"No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."

"Hai! Hurt old man feeling."

"No pizza for you. Not yet."

and my favorite:

"There is now a level zero."

Some of the pre-work for Startup Institute was doing a few problems from projecteuler.net. These problems are a great way to get some practice in solving mathematical problems and writing algorithms. My plan is to solve as many as I can (there are 439 as of this post), then go back and look at how I can refactor and make my code more efficient. I’ve done the first ten so far and was having problems with number 11, so I took a little detour to learn more about multi-dimensional arrays and grids.

I’ve been doing the lessons on RubyMonk for a few days and really like them. I’m just getting into some of the more advanced data structures like stacks and queues. I think I will take a break from RubyMonk and let these new concepts sink in and head back over to ProjectEuler.

If you are new to Ruby, I found Codecademy good for learning some of the syntax. Codeschool also just added some basic ruby courses that are good. Once you get a little comfortable with it, just play around with IRB in terminal a lot and read through the Ruby documentation. That’s been the best way for me to understand how things actually work.

My solutions to the first ten problems on ProjectEuler are posted on my Github under DevPreWork01, and there is a link to my Github at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for reading,

I've been fiddling with some exercises on RubyMonk to get some extra practice in, and the rspec on one particular exercise made me want to bash my head into a wall. 

But then I figured out what I was doing wrong. 

One simple misplaced boolean. 

My bad code:

is_an_experienced_programmer = (candidate.languages_worked_with.include? "Ruby") && (candidate.years_of_experience >= 2) || (candidate.github_points >= 500) && ! (candidate.age < 15 || candidate.applied_recently?)

My good code:

is_an_experienced_programmer = (candidate.languages_worked_with.include? "Ruby") && (candidate.years_of_experience >= 2 || candidate.github_points >= 500) && ! (candidate.age < 15 || candidate.applied_recently?)

These were the parameters:

Let us say you are trying to recruit team-members for your new startup! Given a candidate, you need an expression that will tell you whether they fit into certain types. This is how a candidate object would look:

candidate.years_of_experience = 4 candidate.github_points = 293 candidate.languages_worked_with = ['C', 'Ruby', 'Python', 'Clojure'] candidate.applied_recently? = false candidate.age = 26

We are looking to hire experienced Ruby programmers. Our ideal candidate has 2 or more years of experience, but some programmers become really good even before that. We'll consider their Github points (a nice indicator of a good programmer), and even if they are not experienced, candidates with 500 Github points or more can apply. And there is one more catch: Ruby being a cool and awesome language, a lot of smart youngsters are very good at it. We love those kids, but for this particular job we'd rather have them study at school than work. Let us filter out candidates who are younger than 15. Also we don't want to consider candidates who applied recently for this opening.

It took me a few minutes of reading through my code one condition at a time before I realized that experience and Github points need to be evaluated at the same time.