Ruby Achievement Unlocked, Time for Rails
Published on 23 Mar 2017
by Alexander Garber
Having reviewed my solutions to the first three Days of puzzles of Advent of Code, I am now comfortably proficient in the fundamentals of programming in pure Ruby.
When presented with a problem, I am confident that I can do the following:
Thereafter, I am now confident that, given enough time, I can solve the problem. There is room for vast improvement, but that will come with time.
I really enjoy the daily solution of programming puzzles, and would love to solve all fifty; however, my duty is to prioritise my studies according to optimal employment criteria, and there aren't a lot of jobs going for junior developers who specialise in solving fun puzzles in pure Ruby.
Having passed this milestone in my learning, I am now ready to hit the books again. My study plan encompasses the following:
To gain experience in upgrading older Rails versions, I could probably clone the source code of an existing Rails to a virtual machine, on which an old version of Rails is installed. However, this is a lower priority.
As all who know me can attest to, I can learn and work quickly and efficiently, and am adaptable and resilient. I also take pride in managing expectations between multiple clients and communicating with both clients and colleagues.
For the next couple of weeks I will focus primarily on the Rails framework by working through Ryan Bigg's promisingly large tome: Rails 4 in Action. In this way I expect to establish a thorough grounding in Rails and also a gain a perspective on the changes from Rails 4 to Rails 5, which could come in handy if I ever work on a legacy codebase.
When presented with a problem, I am confident that I can do the following:
- Define the problem
- Describe the solution broadly in programming terms
- Denote the likely classes and methods to be used therein
Thereafter, I am now confident that, given enough time, I can solve the problem. There is room for vast improvement, but that will come with time.
I really enjoy the daily solution of programming puzzles, and would love to solve all fifty; however, my duty is to prioritise my studies according to optimal employment criteria, and there aren't a lot of jobs going for junior developers who specialise in solving fun puzzles in pure Ruby.
Having passed this milestone in my learning, I am now ready to hit the books again. My study plan encompasses the following:
- Build a website in Ruby on Rails to showcase my Advent of Code puzzle solutions. This includes the following:
- Deep knowledge of Rails
- Proficiency in Javascript
- Proficiency in JQuery
- Proficiency in HTML/CSS
- Proficiency in PostgreSQL and/or mySQL
- Writing automated tests in RSpec (my preference) or Factory Girl
- Host the website on Heroku
- Additionally, I will further my knowledge of the following:
- Coffeescript
- Haml
- Amazon Web Services: it would be good to know which services are of the highest priority, as one could spend a lifetime on there.
To gain experience in upgrading older Rails versions, I could probably clone the source code of an existing Rails to a virtual machine, on which an old version of Rails is installed. However, this is a lower priority.
As all who know me can attest to, I can learn and work quickly and efficiently, and am adaptable and resilient. I also take pride in managing expectations between multiple clients and communicating with both clients and colleagues.
For the next couple of weeks I will focus primarily on the Rails framework by working through Ryan Bigg's promisingly large tome: Rails 4 in Action. In this way I expect to establish a thorough grounding in Rails and also a gain a perspective on the changes from Rails 4 to Rails 5, which could come in handy if I ever work on a legacy codebase.