Shout out to my mentor. Learn more about Active Record.

I just feel like I need to give a shout out to my Mentor for Bloc. I have previously left his name out of my posting to protect his privacy, but I realize that is silly. My mentor is Adam. If you have an interest in Bloc I highly recommend this guy. I can go on and on about how smart he is but check out his mentor page on Bloc. His knowledge on Ruby is very vast and has an innate ability to go in depth on a multitude of topics in programming.

I am currently implementing a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship between my bookmarks and tags within my current project. I still have to implement posting from email and add user a devise like user authentication without using the devise gem. My goal is to complete this all by this weekend and move on to Blockepedia on Monday. We will see how it all goes.

This is officially week 7 of my Bloc Mentorship which gives me 5 weeks to complete these two projects in addition to my capstone project.

Working on my backend right now.

After my last programming session I feel more comfortable working on the backend of the app. With the help of the console and Rspec I was able to figure out some nagging issues implementing my Bookmark model.

Also with the help of my mentor who explained to me the need for pluralization in my table, I have surpassed that hurdle.

Basically: 

Models - Singular

Controllers - Plural

Table - Plural

Boo yah! So next I have an issue, I will be referencing this post. 

*Hopefully I will eventually understand the Front-End and Javascript. 

Ruby Newbies

I had the opportunity to attend "Coder Night," which is a meetup where people from all different programming backgrounds come together and solve a code puzzle. The requirement is that you at least attempt the puzzle in order to attend, but the first visit is free of the requirement. I did not attempt the puzzle due to Bloc taking precedent and I already doing so many other thing, i.e Rspec Book, CS50 course, etc.

Even though I did not attempt the assignment I did get to see different languages explained and in action. It's also created an excitement to learn other languages, but for the time being I am concentrating on Ruby and dabbling Javascript in order to keep my focus. I do on the other hand want to learn Scala or Python next.

The group tended to be very much Ruby focused (6 out 10 of the languages were Ruby), which almost made seem like another Ruby meetup. The Java, Python, and GO programmers all had questions on Ruby and why certain things were done certain ways. There is not doubt that Ruby has it's flaws but it great to see there are a number of things that make Ruby great.

In Python for example there is basically only one way to do everything; In Ruby there is definitely multiple ways performs simple commands by making everything into an object. Another thing that kept coming is Ruby's vast community and support. It's seemed to be well respected by everyone in the room despite the comments "popularity." I guess you can compare the way they talked about the Rubyist to the same way people talk about Apple Fan People.

 I am definitely happy I ended choosing Ruby as my first full blown programming a language. It was also nice to get perspectives on code from people other than Rubyist.

--------
I have created a Google Group "Ruby Newbies." Hopefully it will be a way to openly connect with individuals new to Ruby who want to meet other's new to the language. Pair programming is also a great way in learning and hopefully connecting through a newbies platform will make it easier to start down the journey.

If anyone is interest keep an eye out on the group. I am hoping that this weekend I am have a hangout to meet new Rubyist like myself and share learning techniques

This week I hope to complete Blockmarks and continue on to Blockapedia next week.

.

Task Off - App #3

The heroku page for Task Off is Taskoff.herokuapp.com - Please try it out. The concept did come from Bloc and not something I will be purusuing further, So feel free to fork it and have fun.

The code is on my Github and here is the Gist I started this from. I will be starting Block Marks tomorrow morning and excited to implement different concepts.

3rd App complete: Checking logs for errors.

I am just about to finish my 3rd month learning programming and stoked that I have completed my 3rd web app. I spent about 20 hours building it and maybe another 5 this week cleaning it up. This was also my first app that I did not follow a tutorial to build, although I did reference some old tutorials for specific things and used a Rspec tutorial as a guideline.

I am looking forward to starting my 4th app Blockmarks, which involve quite a few things I have not implemented. More on that to come.

I do want to pass on some advice as well as remind myself to check the logs when debugging. I always start with the error on the localhost page but alway forget to check the "rails server" log for the root of the issue. I found a pattern when I kept getting stumped and going to my mentor for help, only to find out my answer was in the log.

This morning I had an error running my app on the Heroku. I wrote a long message with embedded code to my mentor and realized I did not even check the heroku log. I ended up deleting my message and will work on the solution some time today. I will share the app later once I get a chance to fix. For here is the Github

Remember to check your logs. cmd+f "error"

2 things I wish I tried 2 months ago

I took the day off of work because my wife was not feeling well (I needed to watch the boy). I while they both were sleeping I got through a chunk of the Rspec book and also read the first 7 chapters of Learn Rails by Daniel Kehoe.

1. Learn Rails by Daniel Kehoe

Since I sign up for everything I signed up to review a copy of the book but actually never read it since I went directly from One Month Rails to Bloc, while finishing a semester for my MBA. Well I finally read through the intro (first 7 chapters) and wished I read it when I got it. If you are new to Rails or maybe only have 1 Rails app under your belt; I highly recommend this book. It gives a different perspective to OMR and the first few chapters are gold when it comes to Ruby Newbies. The book now cost $19 a month, but similar to OMR, you can through it in a couple of weekends.

2. Rails hotline
In the beginning of the Daniel Kehoe book he goes through tons of resources including Rails hotline, which sounds pretty awesome. I currently use Bloc's office hours and have become accustomed to it, but I think I will still try it out at least once. Those who aren't in Bloc could find this extremely helpful. I will definitely write a post on it when I do use it.

Some other gems I found that I would like to try eventually:
App Scroll 
Pairprogramwith.me
RailsWizard

Things to do: Taskoff and Rspec Book by Aaron Sumners.

I had to postpone my Test Driven Development due to fact of my Rspec learning curve. I was getting a little confused on how to describe the certain functions in the test spec file, but I did pick a book from Everdayrails which should only take a few hours to complete. My hope is once I complete that tonight I will have a better understanding of TDD and follow with it throughout the entire app.

My Taskoff app is going well for the most part, not too bad for no training wheels. I also got stuck on presenting the time left for the task (Each task will be destroyed after 7 days if not completed).

I will also need to postpone my Blocmarks app which I planned to begin with my mentor. I got a lot to work on today