Learning Ruby
22 Oct 2018
The past few weeks I have been working through lessons on Ruby, including the difference between procedural and object-oriented approaches. So far, my web development experience includes working primarily with JavaScript, so the similarities between declaring variables and writing functions/methods helped with becoming acclimated to the language. What I have appreciated about working with Ruby is the idea of using tests to help inform the correct way to write code. I am sure other languages have ways of writing and using tests to determine whether code is working as intended, but I like what I see so far with Ruby.
Another interesting aspect of working with Ruby has been using the command line interface, which I had the chance to use in the course of developing, but also to interact with the Tic Tac Toe game I developed as part of the curriculum. I enjoy seeing the fruit of my labor in the form of practical, functioning code (well, practical may be a bit of a stretch for a computerized version of a game that can be played in many other media) and I look forward to building more complex projects. The next part of the Ruby curriculum seems to be part review and part new material, so I am interested to see how it can integrate into full stack development.
I caught a glimpse of the rest of the stack with some of the frontend HTML and CSS components, but fortunately I already have a fair bit of experience with that from a project with First Step Coding and other simple blogs and websites I have managed over the years. I really look forward to putting together all of these pieces to build something interesting that I want to use and share with others, especially at work. Though I am eventually looking to transition from my current field in which I work with people with disabilities to web development, I want to try to apply some of my knowledge and skills to the administrative processes and tasks associated with my position.
That reminds me of an article I read a while back that talked about how programming is something that will become part of the grade school curriculum in the future because of its widespread applications in any field. I think everyone can benefit from learning something about programming because, at the very least, knowing how the things we use every day work can help us better understand what we might want or need in the course of our work. I look forward to being able to make those things.