#ruby newbie

[gothamdeveloper]

Ruby (Week 6)

In Week 6 we finally got into classes, attributes, instance methods and modules. This was somewhat similar to classes in C++, but with different syntax and names, the basic principles and concepts were still there. The only completely new thing I learned was Rspec testing, we didn't have anything similar to that in C++. It wasn’t that much of a learning curve. It was def harder writing programs though we had a challenge to build a game and it took many hours for me to do it (it was probably the hardest program I had to build so far). It was hard using classes with the instance methods to build it, I ended up writing a lot of stuff outside the class :/ I didn’t have much time to refactor that since I ended up doing on the assignment at the last possible moment (need to manage time better). Weirdly though the Week 6 Assessment was much easier than the challenge and I did pretty well on it. 

[gothamdeveloper]

Ruby (Weeks 4 - 5)

In Week 4 we did some basic Ruby problems and challenges including reintroduction to data types, control flow and debugging. Week 5 was where it went up a notch and we finally started working with arrays, hashes, iteration, nested data structures and dipped a little into implementing sorting algorithms. What I really struggled with in Week 5 was trying to pick which loop to use for implementing a solution. I naturally almost always go for while loops as I mentioned in my last post, but at times where you don’t always know how many times you want to loop something it’s not always the best loop so I had to go for other loops or iteration methods. One of our solo challenges required a lot of code because we still haven’t done classes in Ruby, which made it a little hard, but it wasn’t too bad. Only thing I wish they provided was a lot of different example codes, because I don’t know how Ruby programs are supposed to look like, I’m gonna have to google! Also I use Sublime to code in Ruby, unlike an ide that tells you you’re doing something wrong this is kinda just like typing in notepad which is a little more nerve-wrecking to me. We are moving onto classes this week so hopefully it’ll be better. Yay organized code! 

[gothamdeveloper]

Looping in Ruby

What other ways are there to loop in Ruby other than while and until ?

When I saw this question I did automatically think “FOR LOOPS!!” because I remember seeing it somewhere while picking up some basic Ruby earlier this summer but I remember a TA telling me at a workshop that its not really used much in Ruby, I think she said Rubyists usually prefer the while and until loops. Exploring this a little more today the for loop in Ruby is a lot different than in C++ mainly because it kinda acts like a foreach loop, and mainly is used for arrays, hashes and for a range of numbers. I tried to look up some other loops in Ruby but only came across the each method which you can use for ranges and the times, upto, and downto methods. I think I personally prefer the while loop, its comfortable. The until not so much. 

[bellawo0]

The Daily Weekly Pat

A whole week has gone by without an update on how Pat is doing. We wrapped up our last project last week and then dove into final projects this week. But if you thought that coding bootcamp would get me, I’m here to prove you wrong. Here’s a backlog of how Pat’s been doing the past week. No, he did not complete the puzzle by himself. He had a lot of help.

Week 9 Word of The Week: Practice

Last week was intentionally unstructured. We had a loose assignment which allowed each of us to personalize our work. I chose to build an app for my book club and play around with the Amazon API. It was a lot of fun and less painful that I thought it would be. I also challenged myself by choosing to deploy the finished app to Heroku without supervision from my instructor. Deploying on Heroku is easy, their documentation and marketing copy will tell you that. But inevitably, any launch is always going to be complicated with config stuff.... and that wound up taking a few good hours to resolve. The experience was frustrating and gratifying at the same time. 

I also got to spend a little more time working on the front-end side of things which was really fun. I wish I had more time for it, but there’s never enough hours in the day. I have a feeling I’ll be tinkering with the project off and on for a while. The most important part is that the major features and styles were completed before this week started so that I could devote my time to the final project.

This week has been different. We no longer have morning lectures, but somehow the hours still fly by. I still experience the same roller coaster of emotions day to day; one day I’ll feel confident (or as confident as “hey, I can do this” sounds) and the next day it’ll feel like this:

Actually scratch that. I feel like this dog at some point of my day, every day. But the great thing about code is that nothing is irreversible (well except for rm rf) and you’re the one in charge. The computer doesn’t do anything I don’t tell it to do. And once I remember that, it makes it easier to try again or scrap it all and look for the solution from a different angle.

[bellawo0]

The Daily Pat

3 days behind on The Daily Pat challenge. I took pictures, but never got the change to upload them. Clockwise from bottom left:

- Friday, Iron Pints. Pat is dominating Pandemic, a new game we got for Iron Pints.

- Monday, I barely recognized him when I walked in! 

- Tuesday (today), I wanted to make sure I got a picture of him before he left for the night, but he evaporated into thin air (sad face).

Week 8 Word of the Week: Gem

Things are starting to wind down in preparation for final projects. We brainstormed/pitched final project ideas together as a campus cohort. There were some really great ideas that I’m looking forward to seeing my peers build in the upcoming weeks. And instead of introducing entirely fresh topics, we’re now moving into accessory work. We’re working with our instructor’s preferred gems for common tasks and features.

We also had an amazing speaker, Evan Light, from Optoro come in. He has more than 20 years of active development experience, so he’s seen it all in the dev world (and not just Ruby). The Iron Yard gives the speakers a lot of freedom when it comes to topics and gems have been heavy on Evan’s mind recently. We discussed considerations when choosing gems to work with and the role code review plays with gem use. He also shared his experience, and implicitly, his advice, on how to succeed as a junior dev, selecting the right workplace as a junior dev, and gem maintenance and performance considerations. He stuck me as someone who truly wants to see the next generation of web devs succeed. And while his message wasn’t anything we hadn’t heard before, his authenticity made his delivery refreshing.

Now we’re in week 9 and we’re doing more advanced Rails work and investigating more gems for common scenarios. Next week will be on special topics based on our class feedback. My class has expressed interest in learning Ember.js and I asked about learning a little bit more about dev ops stuff, so I’m looking forward to that. 

[bellawo0]

An anecdote on what this executive looks for in a junior developer in the online media industry.

This was shared by our campus director here at The Iron Yard. Typically, I wouldn’t click on links like these. As someone who used to sit on the other side of the table, I’ll admit I haven’t been listening as intently as I should about he job hunt once I graduate. I listen and I nod when I agree, but I haven’t really been reflecting on how this changes my approach once I’m done with my course.

None of the author’s insights are particularly new to me. It should be common sense. But his last example stuck with me. If you mention that you know RSpec, then you should be confident enough to walk someone through a short presentation on what it does. It’s like resume padding. What would you do if you padded your resume with a skill that you didn’t really have? You’re probably not going to get the job.

So what did I get out of this article? It didn’t necessarily change my attitude towards advice columns for aspiring junior devs, but I will say that I’m going to be just *that* much more alert when it comes to learning any new gem, framework, product, etc. that my instructor presents. And when it comes time to build my final project, I’ll be reading more deeply into the documentation for things I’m using and making sure it’s included as a significant portion of my project before I put it on my GitHub, LinkedIn or resume as a skill.