I’m now three weeks or 1/6 into my learning to code process and my progress to date can be summed up in one word: slow
Photo courtesy of Ian Britton
Alright that’s probably being a little harsh on myself. But, when I first started out this process, I thought I could be plugging away and building something after three weeks.
Instead, my time has been spent completing lessons and Ruby on Rails tutorials, but I’m not yet to the point where I feel I could begin building a project or web app on my own. That’s a frustrating current state because I have ideas that I want to execute.
Maintaining Perspective
I’m staying positive and my Teach Me Stuff mentor, Joe Goldberg, is very helpful in this area. Here’s a snippet of our reacent phone conversation discussing my progress:
Me: “I feel that I’m learning, but it’s going much slower than I imagined at the onset.”
Joe: “I’d be surprised if you told me any different.”
It’s incredible how reassuring it was for me to hear this simple phrase. Learning to code is foreign territory to me and I have no point of reference by which to judge my progress. On the other hand, Joe is experienced with Ruby and development. This support is a large benefit of having a web development mentor.
Adjustments Moving Forward
I’m not planning any major changes. However, one very important takeaway for me has been the idea that I need to focus more specifically on learning Rails, a framework for building with Ruby, than Ruby itself. My focus for this 18 weeks needs to be moving to where I can build a product. As a result, my comprehension of Ruby will, understandably, not be as strong.
In the future, I may have to backtrack or dive further into Ruby because I’ve missed something in this first 18 weeks. That’s a short-term sacrifice that seems reasonable. I don’t want a preoccupation with learning every facet of Ruby to hinder my ability to create an app.
Leave your thoughts about my progress, focusing more a Rails, or any other thoughts in the comments below. Also, for those interested, here are the specific tutorials and lessons I’ve completed to date.
Completed
- Code School Try Git
- Code School Rails for Zombies
- Treehouse Ruby Foundations lessons (partial)
- Treehouse Build a Simple Ruby on Rails App (partial)
- Rubysource Rails Deep Dive (in progress)