Raising, Exception, Rescue

Although I took a week off, don't think I'm done with Ruby!  I'm continuing on the RubyMonk: Ascent book.  As of late I've been learning about exceptions, how to raise them, and begin - rescue - end.  These are easy to learn but difficult for me to put into a concept.  Thankfully, I've also been using the book Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper.*  At first, the style of the book was a bit clutzy compared to Codecademy or RubyMonk, but I've really appreciated using it as a reference for times like these when the concepts seem a bit more abstract than what I am accustomed to.  What are your favorite references?

Photo Credit: RubyMonk: Ascent

*Cooper, P. (2009). Beginning Ruby: From novice to professional. New York: Apress.

Like Pig Latin and Street Lights

Well everyone I finally finished some Test Driven Development exercises tonight.  I did 14 in total.  They were not in any particular "challenge level" order but that may be depended on what areas I (vs you) consider challenging.  The challenges I was using are publicly available on GitHub from user alexch.

There was one exercise, in particular, that really had me stumped.  I knew how I wanted to do it but for some reason just couldn't get there!  Tonight, with my hubby sleeping in the next room, I really went at it.  I think for the first time I felt comfortable using RSpec.  I used it as my primary testing area (instead of using Codecademy's console) and read each error message with a sort of new understanding.  RSpec was very, very helpful in helping me finish the challenge.

It might have been one of the easier ones for someone else, but for me, this one was the final climb.  I'm really excited to be done with them.  I will turn all of my focus to the RubyMonk: Ascent book I've been gushing about the past few days.

Off to sleep for me!

End of Monk

Happy Saturday!! Well... sorta, I have to work most of today, but I'm getting a little coding in this morning.  This week I finished the RubyMonk lessons and problems.  A few reflections: i) RubyMonk is an excellent resource and was a great follow up to Codecademy.  ii) From my experience, RubyMonk taught me a lot more than Codecademy, but perhaps I would have felt that way done the reverse as well iii) The last two lessons in RubyMonk seem kind of rushed.  It's possible they were just topics I was not familiar with, but the I/O streams and File class lessons contained a ton of info and went too fast for my liking.  I will be review these topics on my own.

There is one real criticism I have though.  First, a note about myself - I'm an achievement whore.  This should put the following complaint in the proper light.  RubyMonk is stuck at 99% completion for me.  Its saying I haven't finished the reading on Lambdas.  I've gone over that lesson, the one before it, and the one after it like 10 times.  Why???  Someone from RubyMonk please fix that. It's like a twitch for me. :P

Next up "Ruby in 100 Minutes"...

RubyMonk: More lessons in Ruby

Hello!  Good news!! I passed my code challenge!!  This was their response:

After reviewing your application, we think you might be a good fit. 

One thing we did notice from your coding test is that you may not have a lot of prior experience programming; many of the students we have accepted in the past did not. However, we would like you to complete some additional programming prepwork for us to review before we offer to accept you into the program.

That works for me!!  I'm working on the additional prep work now!  The RubyMonk primer is one thing on the list.  Its a great interactive website that I hadn't liked at first (hence the Codecademy track), but now really, really do!   I've reviewed lessons learned from Codecademy as well as learned some new things.  I am gaining confidence in my exercises.  That in and of it self has been a huge success.

I'm going to keep plugging away at the prep work.  My goal is to be done by Aug 15th. :) I'll keep ya posted! In the meantime, check out this snipet from RubyMonk:

Submitted.

Well, I've done it. I completed the Ruby track on Codecademy.  I've completed over 500 lessons and successfully submitted my code challenge to AppAcademy.  Today I'm starting a track titled, "How to use APIs with Ruby."  From there I'll swing over to the HTML track and then back to JavaScript.  My schedule has been ridiculously crazy working two jobs.  Its been hard to put any real time into these courses but I've been determined to 'code every day' till I get this career going.  I feel like at some point I should look into the Codecademy Projects track, but I'm taking it one day at a time till I sort this new life out.  Lists, calendars, and schedules - Keep on Track!

Things to do:

• Ruby & APIs
• HTML
• JavaScript
• Projects (including some CSS!!)

An Instanceof learning ...see what I did there??

Hello!  Well today was mostly filled with wedding planning stuff, but I *did* manage to squeeze in some time to read my book (thanks again WonderS!!) and do a bit more on Codecademy.  Today I learned the JavaScript operator 'Instanceof '  The syntax goes:

object instanceof constructor

Basically it is used as a test to see if the object you have created is truly an instance of a prior constructor.  For example, if you had just made a constructor Car, and now you wanted to make a constructor electricCar you could use the notation:

ElectricCar.prototype = new Car ();

then you could use instanceof to test if ElectricCar had inherited all the atributes of Car.  :D  Pretty awesome, huh? Well that's all for me today!