It's St. Paddy's Day..

So you know I'm programming [and blogging] under the influence...right? Yeah...HAPPY ST PADDY'S DAY!!!

...probably not.

Anyway...

I was taking a break from Ruby on Rails when I discovered this class, on Friday.  I'm on Chapter 6 of the lynda Rails tutorial, but I decided to stop and review my Ruby skills. [Consequently, I'm pretty sure that I need to get my my CSS skills up, as well]. I've already watched the intro to ruby ones, now I'm on the the second part. I'm looking forward to finishing these and going back to rails this week. I want to get as much done as possible this week, before I start the Coursera Python Class in a week. [Take it with me...maybe?]

The big thing about the Dave Jones classes is not so much the information, as much as it is his comments about programming, in general, while he's teaching the courses. Don't get me wrong though, the classes are good, and it's awesome to have a who class on the things that I'm reading about in books. The original idea was to watch some videos about regular expressions [the section that the pickaxe book was advising to skip through for beginners], but he's dropping some many jewels that I decided that I would go ahead an watch all of his videos on Ruby.

In other news, I'm liking Ruby in Rails more and I can't wait to get back to it. I'm loving the the fact that this is so interesting and that people are getting paid to do it. This feels like getting back to who I was a kid [I used to program on the TI 99 and love it. This is taking me back to that time and I feel like a kid again. I'm doing this from now on...

Watch this awesome video that's in a link because apparently Google is hating on all online video platforms that aren't youtube:

...but

I don't know what else to say, right now, so I'm going to  go ahead and sign off and get back to what I was doing...happy programming.

Peace

...nailed it.

After finally getting everything installed correctly on my computer, I found out that there is bug in the Windows installations that, APPARENTLY, no one wants to fix [wtf, man? seriously???]. I stayed up all night on Monday working on this, only to find out that it wasn't going to happen for me.

After trying to figure this out to the point of being unable to to think clearly, I went to sleep mad. [protip: never go to sleep angry]. The problem was with the database [MySQL] and the gem to link it to Ruby on Rails. I woke up on Tuesday with a mission: get RoR on my computer, stat. After briefly entertaining the idea of changing my server to Apache, I went back to this video that I had been ducking, for obvious reasons if you're new to this.  However after watching his videos, I can confirm that Jonathan MacDonald is legit.

Respect my RoR on Windows 8

After uploading RoR and starting my tutorials, I've been doing the lynda.com tutorials for rails. It's cool, but I don't like it as much just pure Ruby & Python programming. While I'm getting my Rails skills up, I'm continuing to learn about Ruby...and Python. I went back to reading the the pickaxe book and I came up on this video about python, so basically, I'm like a pig in slop [I live in GA, don't judge me]. 

So I'm feeling good, excited. I guess my only issues now are whether I want to work on Ruby or Python. It seems like when I'm working on Ruby, I want to work on Python and when I'm working on Python, I'm thinking about working in Ruby.

I guess the only this left on my mind right now is:

Peace.

So I Took a Week Off...

...and studied Python. lol!

Studying Ruby was starting to wear me down a little bit, so I took the week off and did the Python track on Code Academy. Python and Ruby are pretty similar; I'm not sure which on I like the most, now. What I do know, is that I need to start focusing on studying Ruby on Rails. I watched a video on teaching yourself to code, and apparently, Rails is where it is currently located. So I'm going to go back working on that this week.

I'm starting by going back and doing the lynda.com tutorial on Rails and to  try to get it installed on my computer, again. After that I'm going to do this tutorial that everyone is always talking about. After I finish those two things, I'm think that the next step is  the team treehouse tutorials; they have a 14-day free trial, and by the time I finish all of that, I will have a pretty good handle on Rails, or at least, what I need to do to get a good handle on Rails. [...provided that I can get it working on my computer]

Another thing that I'm considering,  is going to the Iron Yard  code school. I met one of the founders a month or so ago at the iOS meet-up, and then I went to a presentation that he gave on building apps, last Monday at hypepotamus. I really want to go, but it's pretty expensive.

While I'm working on my Rails game, I'm going to make time to continue studying Ruby and Python. I put my books down this week while I was studying Python, but that was mostly because I'm reading a section of the pickaxe book that they recommend that you skip, if you're a beginner, but...

...not in my house. 

Skipping through books just doesn't really sit well with me: I've been re-reading the same section, so I understand what's going on. Studying Python has help me understand Ruby better, though. By thinking about the differences between the two, I get a better handle on both of them.

I think that I'm going to start reading my Python book, now, as well. I like Python, and I'm going to keep studying the language, but I'm going to have to wait until I'm comfortable with Rails before I start picking up Django, so Python is going to be mostly a hobby for me for a little while. Also, they just released a new version on Python, this week, so there's that.

I'm starting to understand what's going on a lot better and I'm really looking forward to building things. So hopefully I'll be able to demonstrate something soon.

In other news, I stopped going on facebook and restarted my Rosetta Stone Hindi and Spanish this week. I'm getting pretty good a my foreign languages. It's also a lot more fun when it's a retreat from studying my programming. I'm doing the voice part, now, too...because pronunciation is key in Hindi and I got caught out there saying an embarrassing thing on accident one time.

WHY IS INSTALLING THE MySQL GEM SO HARD??? [the Struggle is Real]

LOL...seriously, though. I don't think people really use Ruby on Rails and everyone is lying to me. I have been trying to get it to work all day. I actually got it to work once...and then it stopped working, again. I'm hoping that there is someone at hypepotamus that can help me with it tomorrow.

In the mean time, I've started reading another book and went back to learning python, too. It was driving me crazy not working with python for some reason, so I re-started the Code Academy lessons. I got a new book from my cousin, it's called 7 Languages in 7 Weeks; it's pretty good. I did the first day yesterday and I'm about half way through day 2, now. I think the jumping around between books and working on python, as well, will be good for me. I'm getting really antsy with ruby and I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how it works. From here on out, it's probably going to be more about learning about the methods and applying what I know.

The Coding Complete book is starting to frustrate me a little bit, to be honest. It's talking about some things that I don't really understand. A lot of it is over my head, so I'm taking it in pieces. The pickaxe book is good because it keeps me learning ruby and I need it to do the assignments in the 7 Languages in 7 weeks book: the first language is ruby. My cousin also sent me Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language, but I think that I'm going to hold off on starting that one, at least until I finish the Code Academy exercises.

I guess what I'm really struggling with most right now is understanding how everything fits together. I'm not completely lost, though. I know HTML, and I've worked with JavaScript and JQuery, but I don't really understand how Rails fits in. I understand a little bit, but it's fuzzy for me. The thing is, that no matter how frustrated or stumped I get, I realize that as long as keep working on it, it gets better.

Hello, world!

I'm still grinding away at learning how to program. After a lot more reading, I decided to start my program over from the ground up. I think that I did a much better job the second time. I've been kind of avoiding the actual programming, though, and doing lots of reading. I'm still reading the pickaxe book, but I've also picked up Coding Complete. I'm only three chapters into it, so far, and I already like it. It's helping me fill in more blanks, even this early. 

Through reading Coding Complete, the biggest thing that go reinforced to me is that the process of building software is much like any other project that I've worked on. I guess that we all watch these movies with computer hackers and just get caught up into the fantasy that coders just see a problem and then immediately know how to translate that into a program. Much like anything else, though, writing/building a program requires planning and design before you even sit down to write the actual program.

Another thing that I like about the book is the concept of using metaphors to better understand problems. I feel like the word that he was looking for was similes, though, because he always uses the word "like" when he describes his "metaphors," but "similes"' is definitely less cool sounding. 

Something else that I noticed about these books on computer languages is that they always use big words when they could be more clear using simpler terms. Being a stickler for understanding exactly what someone is saying, I'm looking up a lot of words as I read these books...I guess that's not a bad thing. I'm learning a lot of new words. Well, maybe not actually learning new words, but getting really clear on the definitions to words that I had a tenuous grasp on.

I'm so glad that I decided to learn programming. Originally, I wanted to learn programming because I wanted to build apps and software and I thought that if I had to spend time most of my time at work, then coding was something that I could enjoy doing. It fits my personality. But the more I do it and the more I learn, the more it's really not about either of those things at the core. I still really want to do both of them, but this is more like a hobby. It's fun to learn and it's fun to evaluate and solve problems. I can see my self getting really good at this. 

@hypepotamus

I haven't been making any entries for the past few days, mostly because of extracurricular activities. I'm at hypepotamus, now, working on stuff. It's been a good day. The weather here is nice, too.

The meet up that I went to on Thursday was more of a social...son, I was a little disappoint. Not really, it wasn't the one where they help people set up Rails, but I'm glad that I went. I learned a lot of stuff, one of them being that I'm further ahead than I thought I was. I also got a lot of really good advice on my learning process.

protip: if someone lives in Alpharetta, Marietta, Lawrenceville, or any other area that is outside of the 285 perimeter, they DO NOT live in Atlanta, and you should tell them to stop telling people that. 

The meet up on Sunday, that I wanted to go to, was actually not in Atlanta, which bothers me a little but :). Too many people from the outskirts of Atlanta like to tell people that they live in Atlanta and that the areas around where they live are called "Atlanta." As a result, they set up meet ups called "Atlanta Ruby Users Group" that aren't actually in Atlanta [okay, maybe that one was in Atlanta, but just barely]. So yeah...I missed that particular meet up.

I have been working on my coding, though. I've finished the code academy stuff and started reading the the pickaxe book. I think this one is better...it could be because I've know more now and therefore I understand the topics, but I doubt it. I don't regret reading The Book of Ruby, first, though. Before I started reading this I was planning on re-reading TBoR, reading this one is a better idea. I also found a list of books to read, so I won't be starving for reading material any time soon.

The good news is that the more time that I spend learning, the more I understand and am comfortable with. That isn't anything groundbreaking or anything, but sometimes when you get bogged down into learning something new and challenging, you forget that eventually it's going to click and it's going to be awesome.