My Code Log

[mycodelog]

Tonight I did more exercises from "Learn Ruby the Hard Way". The examples provided are practical and the extra credit section provides a good challenge. 

Things of note : 

print vs puts

\\ acting as an escape sequence to make sure Ruby prints things appropriately when dealing with characters inherent in the language.

<<NAME can be working as a string but allows you to put unlimited lines of text rather than breaking it up line by line and will complete when you type NAME again in all caps. 

when creating something interactive, it is possible to source user input by using the gets.chomp() command, when this is assigned to a variable it allows the user to input the variable. 

require and include will allow you to add libraries / feature sets from other sources (ruby gems, programs, etc...) to your program. 

ARGV is the argument variable. it is a constant which means its' value should not be changed after being assigned. It assigns whatever argument you create to particular variables in your application. 

[mycodelog]

I enjoyed a long weekend off from my real job and did spend some time working on code. I got further into the Ruby on Rails treehouse course and then decided to take a step back. I was only following along. The retention of information is probably relatively low for me;  I definitely am picking some stuff up but I feel like it'd be better if I come back to this after becoming more comfortable with Ruby itself as a programming language. I'm deciding to take a more linear approach to this whole thing and not rush too far ahead to the good stuff. I'm gonna familiarize myself more with HTML5 and CSS and start on the Ruby programming language basics. 

Tonight I worked out of some books. I spent 45 minutes doing Ruby examples from 'Learn Ruby the Hard Way' and then worked about 30 minutes through the HTML5 CookBook I have, just familiarizing myself with the code examples and explanations they have there. 

I'm going to not blog my syntax all the time. I will definitely be keeping my own notes and I'll make notes here occasionally when it's important.

Goodnite.

[mycodelog]

It's been sort of a busy week and I slacked a bit. I did some exercises from my HTML5 Cookbook but failed to write about it. I've also been reading a book on scalable web applications which I will write about in a future post. Tonight I worked on creating an authentication system in rails. Trying to keep it light on the syntax, as all is not weighted equally. These seemed to be my most important take-aways after completing my work tonight.

Syntax :

devise : an authentication system

gem 'devise' : adds 'devise' to gem file

rails generate devise : install : installs devise to gem bundle

localhost:3000 : is entered in browser to connect to the Ruby server running your website/web application. 

It was a good sign that I passed all of the quizzes and code challenges with only googling for syntax one time. I guess I picked this one went pretty smooth. 

[mycodelog]

I started Ruby tonight.  While I was installing, they explained that Ruby runs as a client-server model which can be broken down by understanding three components. Our web browser acts as the 'client', the Ruby application acts as the 'app server', and the app server can gather its' information from a server or 'database'. These components make up the ecosystem of a Client-Server model application. While I'm going thru this particular course I keep reminding myself that it's an introduction to Ruby on Rails and it is intended to give an idea of what it is like to program a basic application. After this module, there is a Ruby Foundations module which should go more in-depth and elaborate further on syntax, etc...  So anyway, here's what I've picked up so far: 

Syntax :

rvm use 1.9.3 : will start version of ruby

rails new nameofapp : to create a new directory within current directory

rails server : will start the rails server

hold ctrl + C : will stop rails server 

rails generate scaffold : will assist in creating the variables for the app

  --> this will pertain to publishing the project to github, for collaboration 

git init : will initialize the git repository 

git add . : will add project files to git - the period lets git know to add the repository within the current directory

git commit : will commit files and will freeze the current project files

-m "..." : will allow you to add a message when publishing 

git push -u origin master : will publish repository to github after entering credentials 

git clone : creates local repository for project from GitHub. This will need to be followed by the SSH url directly from GitHub.

bundle : when cloning (duplicating for collaboration) a repository it will install all needed bundles

-->/GitHub (now talking about Ruby on Rails, again.)

views : HTML templates used for page layouts

ERB : embedded ruby, which is a simple template language

<%= code %> : ERB ouput tag which will output the value of code in the template. 

link_to 'link text' , url : creates an <a> tag with the given text and url

view partial : a view that is included as part of another view. signified by a leading _underscore.

render 'partial_name" : renders the content of the given partial into the page. 

layout : a special view that wraps a page view and gives it common structure

yield : renders the page view into the layout view

bootstrap : framework by Twitter to help with application stylesheets

min (minifying) : removing white-space and comments to minimize file size

api.rubyonrails.org : resource for all methods, etc... 

Ruby on Rails' ability to spit code out is impressive.

I was stumped for a long time on one of my final code challenges of the night. I buckled down and went back through the code I followed along with and tried to match things up. What's promising is that I was able to complete it after being stuck for a decent amount of time. With the amount of resources available for this particular language, I can foresee it being difficult to choose a particular one when seeking a specific piece of information. It appears as though http://api.rubyonrails.org would be a good go-to guide, anybody have any recommendations for this? 

[mycodelog]

It was already a long day today but I felt like it was important to complete the console foundations module this evening as I only had one lesson left, Installing Software. I found the information to be valuable but not necessarily helpful, as it focused mainly around installing builds and packages on Linux's Ubuntu operating system, which I'm not really using too much. I do have a virtualization running on my machine but I have not had much reason to use it yet. Perhaps that will change later on in my studies. Anyhow -- here's some of the syntax that goes along with this lesson and a step-by-step guide to installing builds through the console. 

Syntax :

sudo apt-get update : Update your computers catalog of available software

make : program used for builds

tar.gz : file extension common among zipped packages to install

tar - xvf : will un-tar the tar.gz file 

and for when dealing with packages . . . 

apt-get-install-PACKAGE : will install one or more package

apt-get upgrade : will throw newest version of package on machine

apt-get remove package : remove or uninstall from machine

Steps for installing build in console : 

1. Download source file

2. Untar file

3. Run './configure' script

4. Run 'make' command

5. Run 'sudo make install'

Next up is a module on building a simple Ruby on Rails application. I have been excited about this module and have often considered skipping ahead to get started, but I'm glad I waited. Really looking forward to diving in to the Ruby framework and see what possibilities it contains. 

[mycodelog]

Environment and Redirection is tonight's module. I had a late night at work  and now it's past midnight. I'm learning about terminal commands and drinking a beer. 

Syntax: 

env : environment will print out all environment variables 

echo : prints the arguments to the screen / will print actual value. in order to print the argument echo must be followed by $ANDALLCAPITALLETTERSOFARGUMENTYOUWISHTOPRINT

export : will pass down/transfer variables to 'bash' child of the parent session. 

$PATH - will print list of directories of where you can find a file

which : will print the location of a program.

find : will help locate file based on name

grep : (global regular expression print) will allow searching inside a file for a pattern

grep -n : adding -n after grep will print the line number in the search result.

grep -i : because 'grep' is case sensitive, this command will allow you to make the search case insensitive. 

grep- v: will allow you to search lines that do not contain the specefic pattern searched for. 

<----now getting into redirection---->

<FILE : will use FILE as the standard input, as opposed to the keyboard

>FILE : will redirect standard output to FILE, as opposed to printing directly to the terminal

>>FILE : will redirect output to append to FILE

2> FILE : will redirect the standard error stream to FILE ?????

A | B : (pipe) will pipe the ouput of  A to the input of B, etc.... to create a chain of inputs and outputs.

Terminal is crazy powerful! I created a virtualization of LINUX on my machine a few days ago and have carefully messed around the console of the Mac OS but I admit I am pretty nervous about typing commands in the terminal of my machine because I don't feel entirely confident yet and I know a wrong string could potentially screw things up irreversibly. The pipe feature as well as all of find/grep and redirection commands seem as tho they will come in handy later on and I'm looking forward to see how they all tie in together. 

[mycodelog]

Tonight is about dealing with processes from within the console.  

Syntax:

top : a task manager that will show all active processes 

ps : will provide a list of processes

ps aux : will provide full list of all processes

grep : will allow you to take an input, search for a certain pattern, and filter based on search. 

ctrl + z : will pause a process/job

fg : foreground - will resume the last process/job that was paused.

jobs : will show all jobs of current session

term : will request to terminate process after any cleanup, can also use ctrl + c to run this command

kill : will force a process to exit (force-quit)

stop : will stop or pause a process

It is worth noting that kill is a basic command and from within that command a -KILL or a -STOP will actually insight a result.

I was cautious in my experimenting after completing the Processes module and I was careful to stay away from using the -KILL command, as it seems rather dangerous. -STOP is safe and equivalent to using the ctrl+z command. 

[mycodelog]

Hello, World.

I have been learning web development for a bit over a month now. This log will serve to document successes and opportunities of learning new programming languages and frameworks. 

I am currently using a few different resources to code. My primary resource is Team Treehouse. To supplement I am using CodeAcademy and CodePen. I am using a few of the O'Reilly media books on Ruby, HTML, CSS, Scalable Web Technology, and Web 2.0 as well. 

Because I am beginning to document a bit late: I have already completed modules in HTML 5 and CSS basics and then dove in a bit further. I have done some basic JavaScript programming and have just begun digging into the console.