I'm slowly still working on Ruby/Rails mastery and trying to add some AngularJS and jQuery to that as well. I've only been working on Ruby/Rails at my job during the week and trying to do some online coursework on AngularJS during the weekends. My study pace has slowed down the past few weeks because I'm also making time for running and freeletics and trying to find a flat so we can finally move to Amsterdam permanently.
I've been super encouraged over the past few weeks by other aspiring devs out there in the world! I've gotten messages and tweets from folks that are also working their butts off to become software developers. It's very humbling to get messages from others that say I'm an inspiration and motivator for them on their own journeys. I appreciate the fact that others are taking time to contact me, and I love the community of coders worldwide.
I'm glad to give inspiration or advice to others out there! I love chatting with others in similar situations. But, I feel it's necessary to clarify my current skills levels. I'm very much a Junior Ruby developer. I can figure some stuff out and generally understand tasks set before me, but struggle with how exactly to write code to build out some features. I need guidance often from my boss, an expert Rails developer. I hunt google & stackoverflow A LOT. I know it sounds awesome that after studying & interning for the past 5 months that a got a job as a dev (which it is), but please realize that it wasn't some magical turning point in my coding abilities when I got a job or that I'm some coding rockstar. I am not. I struggle everyday, just on new things than the day before. I am painfully aware of my inadequacies. I've been working from home for the past 2 weeks with minimal support from senior devs and that has been a struggle...No one around to talk through things I don't really understand or get guidance on problems. That's definitely added to my frustation with my jr skill level lately. I sometimes wonder what the hell I'm doing, but I'm hopeful that in a few months, that my skills and confidence will grow a lot more.
I really like learning another new language (jQuery & AngularJS) so far. It's challenging to think in a new language and learn its context. I think it is helping me solidify RoR concepts as I push my brain to think in a different language.
