Sunday's Progress

We went to my first RailsGirls meetup in a nearby town.  It was a presentation over MVC and HTML/CSS.  I'm slowing wrapping my brain around the idea of MVC.  I'm glad Josh could go with me.  Glad coding processes/design overlap so that he can explain things to me even though RoR is foreign to him as a C#/.NET programmer.

Looked at Learn to Program a little when I got home.  I got through another exercise in the book.  Tired.

I just found out that there is a group planning a Dev Bootcamp in Amsterdam.  Very excited and interested in this!  I hope it is (a) coming up soon and (b) that the tuition will be affordable.  It would be an amazing opportunity.

Looking forward to starting fresh this week.

Last couple days progress!

Still working through Chris Pine's Learn to Program...

I got through chapters 7-9, even going back to re-do and practice exercises over again.  I want to make sure everything is sinking in into my head well.

I got RailsGirls app setup on my system and ready for the meetup tomorrow.

Wednesday's progress.

• Did 16 lessons of Git Immersion today.  Getting my feet wet with Git!
• Finished Chapter 6 of Chris Pine's Learn to Program tonight.  I am doing all the exercises as I go along.

Tuesday 11/25...

Went through a couple more Epicodus exercises, but got stuck on some of the exercises.  I got through the leap year exercise, learning how to use chai.js and mocha.js for writing and testing specs and then refractoring my code.

Learning to use Chai.JS and Mocha.JS for spec testing in BDD.

But on the following independent exercises, I felt too challenged without any support - I know the online course is drawn from the in-class materials and I felt without the in-class support, the independent assignments were a good bit above the examples that were illustrated.

So...I'm really proud of my progress in HTML, CSS, and JS over the last 2 weeks, but.... instead of spending a lot of time to figure out javascript challenge exercises on my own, I'm going to go ahead and switch gears to Ruby.  Getting into Ruby and Ruby on Rails is my real goal, so I'm going for it.  The basis of knowledge I learned in these other languages will be useful and help me move quickly into learning the new.

I started reading Chris Pine's Learn to Program book.  I read the first 4 or so chapters tonight.  Reads well and easy to understand.  I'm hoping to get through most of the book this week.

Ping Pong Test (aka FizzBuzz Test)

I figured out the ping pong test!  Feeling good with my progress.  Oddly, I got the loops and if/else if statements figured out pretty quick, but what tripped me up the most was figuring out how to get my integers listed properly into my bulleted list.  The solution was so easy once I got that bit finally fixed in my head!

My final solution. 

Here's more info on the Ping Pong test (aka Fizz Buzz), apparently it's a popular interview question:  Why Can't Programmers.. Program?  Really...199 out of 200 programmers can't figure it out?  Maybe my odds are better than I thought then? :-)

I also did a couple lessons on BDD/TDD process.  Happy with today's progress.

Weekend Progress.

Finished up lessons on looping w/ forEach and for loops.  Got a little stuck on one of the looping exercises:

• Go back to your page where it would pop up an alert every time you clicked an element and say what kind of tag it was. Refactor your JavaScript for this page to use a loop.

But I slept on it last night and figured out the solution in only a couple minutes this morning!  Whee!  Then finished up the section on debugging, luckily already practicing some of these techniques in my practice exercises.

Tomorrow I will do the next exercise, the Ping-Pong challenge, and then dive into behavior driven development (BDD)!  Yay!

Friday 11/21

Not too much progress today.  Just very fatigued and brain fog, that made it hard to follow/think through new concepts.  I had to keep watching and watching clips again for anything to sink in.  Oh well, everyone has their off days.

I did get through the introduction of arrays and looping in javascript.  Getting closer to closer to the section on Ruby.

I'm feeling reasonable about the progress I've made this week.

Thursday, 11/20

Another day, more time spent learning/practicing on jQuery.

Learning about branching, if/else criteria, truthy/falsey... Watching epicodus lessons and working through the coding exercises.

Wednesday of Week 2...

Working through more jQuery slowly today.  Spent a good bit of time really working through the practice exercises and understanding how to think through and setup a solution to a task.  Feeling a bit more comfortable.  Hoping this feeling continues....

Tuesday's progress

Progression slowed down today.  I need time to process the jQuery I'm learning in the Epicodus course.  I need it to sink in really well.  I did a lot of studying of new stuff I've learned in a couple lessons today on other sites.  I'm really trying to fully understand how to setup several methods  within the js file.  A little frustrated about how many little errors I make, then I have to go back and debug the code... but I guess that is a good thing to deal with early on... I find my mistakes and then curse myself for these errors!

Monday's Progress!

Today's progress:

• Finished up the HTML/CSS section on Epicodus.
• Played around with Bootstrap some more.  I like it.  
• I think I'm going to surprise my folks and redesign their company's (poorly done) website using a nice bootstrap theme.
• Learned basics of javascript (variables, strings, methods, functions).
• Started the section on jQuery.
• Downloaded jQuery 1.11.1
• Setup a virtual Ruby on Rails environment on nitrous.io and invited my husband/mentor to join me.  So now I have it on my Macbook and a virtual option.
• Skipped ahead in the Epicodus course to the start of Ruby on Rails section.  Tried the IRB command and although I could input, but I initially got a error about Headline file missing.  So... I went into crafty IT troubleshoot mode and successfully figured that out and reinstalled RVM and got that error GONE!   (It only took 2 different attempts before success! :-] )
• I also emailed the nearest RailsGirls meetup group to see if I could join the next beginner class in their series or if I would be totally lost.  I'm going to try to make it over there to that meetup later this month!

Sunday.

Went through the Epicodus video course some more, almost done with first section on HTML/CSS.  

I learned about applying Bootstrap styles and specificity of CSS classes.

Next section is on javascript.  Looking forward to it!

I'm feeling good about my first week of this adventure.

My goals for my second week are:

• Continue through the Epicodus course, getting through at least the next section on javascript.
• Starting playing around on the Ruby4kids website.
• Review command line terminology again.

Saturday's Progress

I played around with making changes to my blog.

I added the navbar, title image, and formatting. I like the style better now, but want to learn to do more, and will be continuing to make changes improvements.

Google search is definitely my friend in making the changes!  Getting more comfortable playing around with the HTML and CSS.

Friday's progress.

I worked through a couple more CSC python course problems, and I'm on exercise set 8.  I feel like I will work on these as I need a break with other things I'm working on.  There isn't an answer sheet, so when I get stuck, I do best if I do something else and come back fresh to a problem.

I'm doing some more of the Epicodus course.  I want to get through the first section on HTML/CSS in the next day or so.

I also started and finished reading "learning the command line the hard way" today.  After the frustrations of figuring out the RVM/RoR install yesterday, this is important to get more comfortable with.  I'm going to work on memorizing the most useful commands that the author recommends to learn.  The crash course was great and easy to understand!  Recommended.

XCode, HomeBrew, RVM, Ruby, Rails.... wheee!

Set up my dev environment today.  Wow, was that frustrating!

I had a slew of error messages but luckily with googling, stackoverflow, and some uninstalling/reinstalling Xcode and RVM and updating OpenSSL, I finally got everything installed by following the RailApps Tutorial.  Whew.  I am learning about how to use a Mac (long-time PC user until a year ago when Win8 changed my mind) alongside learning how to be a developer!

Glad I accomplished this today, I was so disappointed this morning when I was trying to figure it out and I kept getting 3 different error messages.  This took me most of the day to figure out and finish the install, but it's done and working as far as I know!

Day 3 Progress Update

I continued some exercises on the UWaterloo Computer Science Circles Python Tutorial, but then their website was unresponsive, so I am switching gears and started some video lessons on Epicodus.  I'm excited to learn HTML/CSS and hopefully can update my blog to reflect what I learn.  I'm not keen on the stock formats!

I installed the recommended text editor Atom instead of Sublime Text, since it is free and recommended by Epicodus.

I went through 5 or so lessons of Epicodus today.  I then switched gears and looked at setting up my dev enviro for Ruby on Rails.  I looked at the Ruby4kids site, then tried the tryruby short interactive tutorial.  I then got frustrated figuring out how to get darn Ruby on my Mac w/OSX Yosemite 10.10.  I guess I'm dumb and thought the install would be straight-forward.  I finally googled and found some step by step instructions and will hopefully get that set up tomorrow!

Day 2 of a New [Scary?] Journey.

Am I really doing this?  This wouldn't be the first time I've attempted a career change...  and it would certainly be less expensive (no expensive masters program this time) if I focus on self-study and do affordable online courses to supplement my free training resources.

It's scarier this time around.  I'm older (early 30s) and leaving my established career field.  My background is chemistry.  I've worked for 7 years as an analytical chemist in pharmaceuticals....(this includes a year gap where I went back to college to get a Masters in Teaching, but could not find a job as a middle school science teacher afterwards, so I went back into the lab.)

This year, I moved with my partner to the Netherlands from the US.  This was a dream fulfilled for us and one we made happen by taking a huge chance: selling everything, quitting jobs, and moving to Germany to find work.  Luckily he successfully found a great job in the Netherlands.

I'd like to think I'm a bright, inquisitive, tenacious problem-solving chemist... which hopefully my scientific mindset will transfer over and be beneficial in learning to code.

Here's the things I think I have going in my favor to be successful:

• My partner is a senior level C#/.NET developer who knows front-/backend and middleware.  He will be my mentor.  Even though he is not familiar with RoR, he knows a lot of other languages, knows how to set up a dev enviro, etc, so he is a resource.  He is going to learn RoR along with me so he can help and we can collaborated on projects when I get to that level.
• I can devote a full-time job's level of time commitment to learning.  I am not employed.
• I have a background in not only science, but QC.  That means I'm used to things having to be done exactly a certain way so that they are credible and analyses go as planned with intended results.  I'm used to attention to detail to a ridiculous degree.  I am also flexible and adept to troubleshooting and working through problems.
• There are a ton of online resources for training.
• There is a RailsGirls meetup group in nearby Utrecht, NL.   There is a frontend meetup group in Amsterdam, NL.  Both of these cities aren't too far by train.  The meetings are in English too.

I am starting this blog on the advice in the posts of Josh Kemp who was able to go from beginner to a full-time, employed RoR developer in ~9 months.  I am mainly blogging to hold myself accountable, rather than for self-promotion at this point.

My goal (7 months?) is to become proficient enough I can find an paid internship or junior level position.  I want to learn RoR and HTML/CSS.

Here's my gameplan for the rest of November...

1. Finish the Computer Sciences Circles intro to programming/Python course.  I started this course a day ago, when I was looking into the 1-yr BS degree in CS from OSU and they recommended trying it out.  I want to finish since I've started.  I'm on exercise 7C currently.
2. Set up my development environment for RoR with the help of my mentor.
3. Read Zed Shaw’s "Learn the Command Line the Hard Way"
4. Pick one of these courses and start it:
1. The Odin Project
2. One Month Rails
3. Epicodus free online course

Back to studying....