Learning to program != fun
In my spare time (ha!) I’ve been undertaking a long overdue task—learning to program. While I’m competent in fumbling my way through other peoples’ PHP, I’ve got a few projects that I don’t think I can accomplish by adopting somebody else’s code.
The tossup is between learning PHP or Ruby on Rails, and since everything I’ve read says RoR is easier, I’ve jumped in.
Oy. I swear when people complain that the CSS box model is difficult to understand; Ruby makes that look like 2+2.
I realize they’re two **completely** different types of programming, but I’m dying to reach that moment when it all starts to come together in my head. The day I could start writing out CSS without flipping through a reference every 5 minutes was a happy day, and I need some sign that will happen with this. Unfortunately, my brain is still completely resisting.
Dan Benjamin’s guide to getting a development environment up and running on OS X was a huge help, and after reading Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby & Chris Pine’s Learn To Program, I’m now working through Agile Development. I have (I think) the concepts down, which was a feat for me at first; what a method, class, attribute, instance whatevers, etc… (my frustration in even listing these things out speaks volumes about how far I’ve come…)
I’m halfway through (more or less) the ‘build a shopping cart’ chapters, and while I was in awe of scaffolding and how fast it all came together, as soon as the program through up a NoMethodError and I couldn’t figure out where that method should have been put in… (shakes laptop uncontrollably)
Maybe I should have paid more attention during AP C++ back in the day.
