#wfd@wdi

[faiweiner]

Week 6 - Day 2

Topics: Javascript Objects

Exercise: Wrote a program Say Magnitudes that takes a number in numerical form (up to 999,999,999,999) and spits out the number in Englishy block (i.e. 999 billion, 999 million, 999 thousand and 999). Wrote less than 30 lines of code, which makes me pretty proud!

Lab: Lots and lots of Javascript exercise. Pretty comfortable with the syntax (I'm super strict about indentation and white spaces!). I got this in the bag!

Headache Level: 2 - Mild pain

Not bad, not bad at all. Quite enjoying Javascript and am super excited to learn what it can do (later this week. Though I foresee spending hours on tonight's homework (MTA remake), I have a feeling it's going to be a fun one!

Things to remember:

DO NOT. I repeat - DO NOT - call Javascript "Java". They're as similar as ham to a hamster.

Javascript allows you to set new keys at any time - so be very careful with spelling... so for example, you can accidentally set keys "religion" and "relijion" and debugging will be über difficult. Be careful!

[faiweiner]

Week 4 - Day 2

Topics: Helpers, ActiveRecord practice and of course, more Rails

Overall Day: Fast-paced day today, and you know what? I actually kept up! I don't even know how/when it happened, but Rails clicked today (or maybe yesterday), and it clicked much faster than anything has clicked during this course.

Small victories - I will take them when I can!

Arvo Lab: ActiveRecord Migration - we created tables of planets, oceans and mountains... migrated new models and schemas, added columns, deleted (destroyed) whole tables (I got some interesting gratification from DESTROYING PLANETS during the arvo exercise)... lots of repetition, but it's definitely helping me remember.

Song: American Pie - casts a surprising calm effect, even through furious typing and over-caffeination. 

Headache Level: 1 - Very mild pain: Today was a very good day, everyone!

Headache-inducing Challenges:

DO NOT USE BUTTONS FOR LINKS!! Buttons are meant for affirmative actions (as in posting something to the server). Use links to get or access different page views. If you're going to be OCD about it, style links to look like buttons for consistency.

Watch for spaces! And stray closing side carrots... basically watch for syntax. Be precise now so that no such mistakes are made with Javascript (when white space and syntax really matters!)

Things to Remember:

Helpers are your friends - that's why they're called "helpers." Learn them, study them, understand them! 

In a CRUD system on Rails, only models need to talk to the database. When controllers need to access the database, they go through models.

"rails console" : great testing environment (kind of like Pry) in CommandLine for Postgresql

"rails generate migration create_planets" + "rake db:create" + "rake db:migrate" to create a table using ActiveRecord in Rails.

Rails allows you to destroy an instance of an object (record in a table) in three lines of command!!! I. Love. Rails.

[faiweiner]

Week 2 - Day 4 (Updated)

Topics:  Ruby Review, File I/O, Forms, HTML inputs, more Sinatra

Exercise: Stored students in a database along with the grade they each received. Adding new instances to a hash, printing those instances, and sorting them. I finally grasped the idea of storing and pulling values from arrays - and values of arrays that sit within a key-valued pair within a hash (let me read this three more times) - but I think I may have lost some brain cells along the way. 

Arvo Lab: Sinatra practice

Song of the Day: Too busy to hum in my head today, but the Walter Mitty soundtrack definitely kept me going.

Headache-inducing Challenges: 

Passing an array into a hash, accessing data from the hash using the key or value.

I need to hammer down the idea that a "type" in a form acts the same way as a key in a hash!

Logic, logic, logic! I feel like I'm almost there! Everything makes perfect sense when someone is explaining it, but I always end up with a headache when doing it myself.

Headache Level:  8 - More severe pain

[faiweiner]

Be patient, persistent, logical & hard working.

Tarun, WDI1, GA Sydney

[faiweiner]

Like all arts it requires effort, discipline & the desire for growth.

Tarun, WDI1, GA Sydney