Rails Update

Some thoughts on AWDWR…

This is a great book, well-written and with interesting examples. While I enjoy working with it, as a first-time programmer, some of the assumptions and the structure is challenging. Two examples:

• By page 105, as work on the shopping cart begins, the authors have stopped the hand-holding and you’re expected to know what they mean by terms you may not be totally comfortable with yet. This is something of a challenge to someone who has no background in object-oriented programming, and a few of these instances sent me running to Google to get some clarifications on the terms.
• I’m not sure why we go from building a template, view, etc and then suddenly jump right into sessions and shopping carts. There are few things that are possibly more mind-numbingly boring than the security behind this stuff, and though I need to know it, it’s 1) a little complicated for this early in the book and 2) not necessary for actually learning Rails itself. I’d be much happier if this piece was left until closer to the end.

Those things said, I still give the book my full endorsement. Fortunately, Rails makes it super-easy to start over, which I’ve done once, because I just found myself going too quickly through the information. But by taking it slow and steady, these things are beginning to sink in.

Ruby On Rails

Ruby on Rails, one of the most exciting things to hit the web since “Web 2.0″ become an actual cliche, attracted me because of the elegance of the code itself. With the encouragement of a couple good friends (brilliant programmers in their own right), I thought learning my first programming language would finally be a fun, achievable project to pursue. Though my progress is slow and my time to dedicate to it is (frustratingly) minimal, I have enjoyed learning how this highly evolved language works and interacting with the fervent community that supports it.

I have a two-pronged approach to learning the language. The first is by following the third edition of Agile Web Development with Rails, a popular book in the Rails community. The second is by writing my own program, a solution to a particularly thorny issue with creating a large number of very similar reports from disparate sources. As I follow the book, I try to apply the lessons learned to my own program.

Updates categorized with “Rails” will appear on this page as I go along.