Advanced Ruby Features

I have decided that buying a mac is going to be unavoidable. I never thought that I would own a mac, but Windows 8, their lack of interest in what's best for the user, and the inability to create apps for iPhones and iPads make owning one a necessity as a developer. Windows 8 even blocks you from running Ubuntu side by side with it and I'm still trying to decided whether or not I want to add this third party software to my system that will allow me to to this. [it's been 2 days] I'm seriously disappointed in Microsoft...shopping for macs online today was so depressing.

Two weeks ago I went to Octane and there was this chick there with a mac 

who sat on facebook for two hours...all of my nope, every bit.

I've been taking it kind of easy on myself this week, I think. That last chapter was a little bit taxing, interesting, but taxing. I had to take my time and take it in pieces so that I could retain as much as possible. The chapter that I just finished in my book was about advanced Ruby topics [whew!].  It took me a few days to get through it, just because I was trying extra hard to take everything in [probably not the best idea ever]. This is probably one of those chapters that I'm going to have to go back and read again...and again.  My favorite topics were probably the ones about Win32API and win32ole. I'm definitely going to have to learn more about that stuff.

Topics that I remain weak on are threads, fibers, and RubyInline, although RubyInline is awesome and I need to learn a lot more about that...and new languages. Being able to use C in ruby for hyperspace in your programs is sweet and I am also very interested in using any and all other languages with RubyInline. I'm extra excited about learning other languages now, even though I probably won't start anything new until 2015. It will probably be my New Year's Resolution. This year's resolution was learning to code[killing it, btw].

In the next chapter, that I've already started ;), I'm going to be making a bot, like Eliza. It's supposed to bring most of the stuff that I've learned in the book, so far, together, and it should be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to working on it more tonight... after I do a little bit more Hindi. Hopefully, this will be great review for the things that I have already learned and clear up some of the topics that I was fuzzy on going through the book.

I Need A Programming Job

I feel like I'm finally at the point where I can get a job coding in ruby and ruby on rails, learn pretty fast, and be an effective member of a team. I'm on Chapter 11 of my book, Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional, and I took my python midterm yesterday. I'm at the point where the basics are just boring and it's really time to start building stuff. The only problem is that I don't like to leave things unfinished, so I need to finish this book, stat. However, I still don't know everything; I just have gotten the hang of how everything works, so nothing is surprising anymore.

One of the things that I was really excited about was using ruby, and python, with other information like files and the internet. I'm not saying that I'm the master of doing this, yet, but I do understand it. I took my python midterm last night and got a 95. The thing is, I didn't study and I didn't even go there to take the test...I just wanted to look at it. It's not due until Monday, but when I was looking at it, it was easy for me, so I finished it.

The thing that I'm really looking forward to, though, is the National Day of Civic Hacking, this weekend. I can't wait and I'm trying to learn as much as possible before Friday, so I can join a really good group and have a lot to contribute. I had a lot of fun at the last hackathon.

In other news, one of the guys I met at a meet up a few weeks ago is doing the Michael Hartl tutorial and ran into a jam. I have a love/hate relationship with jams. :) I'm going to get to that. I love coding. Peace.

Taking Time Off is Bad Business...

...especially when you're just getting started. I just took a weekend off and it's taking time to get back to a point where I'm actually moving ahead; I'm going to be up all night. I finished a semi-related book called The Talent Code, yesterday. It really gave me a lot of insight into the learning process. Since I've finished this book, I'm all about practicing my skills. I would highly recommend this book for anyone, but especially for anyone who is trying to learn something new.

Beyond that, I've been reading another book called Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional. I'm at the same point in my Ruby, that I always have trouble with: YAML. I just don't get it, and if you type in into irb exactly as it's written in the book, it doesn't work. I get frustrated with a lot of these books for this reason. The authors don't really realize that they're talking to beginners...or this beginner. There are also a lot of typos in the book, this is especially awesome if you're a grammar nazi. That being said, this is the best book that I've read so far about the Ruby language, for beginners. Everything in the book is laid out pretty well, and I definitely feel like this book has contributed greatly to my understanding of the language.

Someone on reddit solved that Project Euler problem that I was working on, but I still don't understand the answer. I want to solve all of the problems on that site, but..

I won't be moving to the next problem until I do(understand), and I can post my own personal solution in the forum. [/srs]

I've also been chugging along with my python skills. My home work for my python class was due on Monday, so that was the first thing that I worked on. On Tuesday night, I entered into another platform for learning python, that is showing promise. I've probably said this before, but once you have a solid start in ruby, if you start learning python, it's a good way to internalize both by your analysis of the differences between the two...and they both have great communities. 

...back to work.

My Cousin's Wedding

I went to Houston this weekend for my cousin's wedding. Yeah...didn't get anything done. I can't wait to get back to work tonight. This is going to be an awesome week. The ruby boot camp starts this week and then there's this. That is all.

largest_prime_factor:1: syntax error, unexpected end-of-input

number = 600851475143
largest_factor = 0

(0..number).each do |x|
if number % x == 0
if x == 2 || (x % 2 != 0)
prime_factor = x
if prime_factor > largest_factor
largest_factor = prime_factor
end
end
end
end

Learning to Ruby

I've had a pretty busy two weeks. Last week was Atlanta Big Data week, and event that was put on by Emcien. On Tuesday, I went to an event called How to Become a Developer, which featured a panel of developers who talked about how they got started. There was a lot of good information from the panel. It was a little annoying that so much of the Q & A time was taken up by people who just wanted to prove what they knew, but overall, it was a great experience.

The next event that I went to for Atlanta Big Data Week, was the two-day Hackathon that they held at hypepotamus. This was a really great learning experience for me, because I ended up being the team lead, which was odd because I have only been programming for a little over 1/4 of a year now. I was in way over my head on the project, but we had fun working on it, I met a lot of cool people, and was exposed to lots of new stuff. I'm going to stay in touch with those guys.

Hacklanta 2014

As a result of the How to Become a Developer event, Al Snow and Gerry Pass put together a meet-up called Career Planning for Ruby Newbies, where we got a lot of good information about learning Ruby on Rails and landing our first job. Afterwards, we all went to the monthly Atlanta Ruby Users Group meet-up, where John Saddington had a talk about blogging/social media, and how it can affect your career as a programmer and entrepreneur. Ruby on Rails rockstar, Obie Fernandez was also there and let us look at some of his code that involved using a gem called Wisper to do some publishing [it think?]. To be perfectly honest with you, though, I didn't really understand what his code did, but It was cool looking at it and just seeing how much it looks like mine. I was a good day all around.

Now, the plan is to get all of my ducks in a row: I will be blogging a lot more and getting my programming and development skills where they need to be. I'm going to re-do the Michael Hartl tutorial and instead of doing the application again, I'm going to turn the project that I've already done into something more personal. There is also a free 6-week web development boot camp that starts next week. I plan to meet up every Monday with some of the new people that I've met through this learning process to work through it. 

Another thing that I'm doing to work on my programming is Project Euler. I've completed the first two problems and I plan to do the next pretty soon. Over the past few weeks I've gotten lots of good information on programming and web development. If you're trying to learn, the meet-ups are a strong step in the right direction.

Code for America

The next event that I'll be attending is the National Day of Civil Hacking . I'm really looking forward to this. Probably the only short coming of the hackathon that I went to last weekend, for me, was that I was the best developer in my group. I hope to learn from some real coders at this one...but I sure I'll meet more awesome people as well.