Learning Ruby on Rails Day 169: Stay the Course!

It's funny as you push really hard for a goal, how many things will all of the sudden pop up and try to distract you or knock you off course. I don't even mean bad things, even good, like what happened to me yesterday.

I am as you know trying to get out of being a professional farrier and transition into being a Junior Ruby on Rails Developer. As a farrier I do a really good job and have no shortage of work. I work on Millionaire's, Veterinarian's, Trainer's, and even Dressage Judge horses so I could very well just keep on doing what I am doing, but that's not what I want.

Yesterday as I was working at a barn in Clifton doing a Dressage Judge's horse (that had just gotten back from showing in Ocala, Florida), Grand Prix Dressage rider and USDF Gold Medalist walks up to me and asks if I would consider taking her on as a client and shoeing her horses. I was blown away, that as I am trying to get out of shoeing, I would get offered such a coveted opportunity!

As the Summer approaches and things get busier and busier for me, I must fight for my 21 hours of studying per week! Today is catch up day. I am falling behind this week, so I will get in 6 hours of studying! I will write a blog tomorrow, and let you know how I did.

One final note, back on Oct, 23rd I decided to blog to keep myself accountable and to show others that this can be done and you can get hired after 6 months. Well I have a surprise for you all on April 23rd, I will be posting a link and a very short message. You will get to see if my creative idea works. It isn't 100% original. I heard about it in January and decided I would try it just to see what kind of response it would generate, then tell you the results. Hopefully it will be an encouragement to us all to keep learning/studying and not give up on your goals.

So stay tuned for the surprise on the 23rd. Now time to kick some butt studying :)  - Josh

Learning Ruby on Rails end of week 24 = Total hours of studying 484.50 !!!

Yes 2 weeks left on my 6 month learning Ruby on Rails journey, excited! I almost have 500 hours!

I put in 65 commits into the Web Application last week, and I'm sorry to say I am scrapping the project. My brother +Cody Kemp will continue to work on it on his own, so I'll let you know when it's done.

I decided to stop working on the Web Application for 2 reasons: (1) The business model to generate income form this particular Web Application is not going to work like I thought at all. (2) I may have the opportunity soon to work on something really cool that I've always wanted to make, not sure yet if it's definitely going to happen or not but I'll let you know.

This week I am working on making my friend's landscaping business website, I want to have the rough mock up done by this weekend, I'll post pictures up as it comes along.  I'm beginning to understand what makes Rails so powerful, it shows it strength best when dealing with web site's that have 'multitenancy' (look it up, I did opened my eyes to the world of Rails).

I guess I had always thought of web sites as being static bill board style web pages. If that's all you need, than Rails is really not going to shine as good as say a Static content generator like 'MiddleMan'.

Anyway learning more and more, and still feeling like the more I learn the less I know. I guess this is when you reach a point of knowledge and understanding , that you just start beginning to get an idea of how much you DON'T KNOW, so I'm taking that as a good sign :) - Josh Kemp

Learning Ruby on Rails Day: 165

My birthday is tomorrow I turn 28. It's amazing what you can learn and accomplish in 6 months if you put you mind to it ( not to mention hard work and time)  :)  When I first started learning to program, I had absolutely no clue or idea of anything  that I wanted to make, I just wanted to learn to program. In the last month I've all of the sudden had a surge of ideas for things I want to build, I wonder if that's how it is with other programmers as you begin to understand things a little better, or is it just me?

One question I was thinking the other day: "How long does it take a professional Ruby on Rails Developer with 3-5 years of experience to make a basic website?" Of course the term basic is incredibly vague, but still I wonder. A day? A week? A month?
It doesn't matter I was just thinking.

Working on the pet rescue tonight, maybe a little on +Cody Kemp  and mine's Web App, we'll see, I'm watching my 2 boys as I write this, they're watching "Despicable Me". Is this how others code? I don't know, but it works for me :)  -Josh

Ruby on Rails Learning Journey Day: 163

19 days to go till I hit 6 months of studying/learning Ruby on Rails, also in 19 days I promised you guys that I would have the Web App I'm making with +Cody Kemp 100% done and online for you to see. I'm happy to say that I am 58 commits into the project so far and feeling very good about it.

The Web App still looks the same right now as the last picture I put up on Twitter. I've been working on creating a user account and validating the users e-mail and password, tomorrow I am going to be working on the sign in page, when I have something new to look at done, I'll put a picture up on Twitter so you guys can see.

The Web App is able to create secure users with passwords right now, but you can only add them from the 'rails console' at the moment. Not sure how I'm going to host it. Not sure if can I use Heroku, or will it have a really long weird URL if I do that? Suggestions? Advice?

Anyway, first things first I need to get everything finished in the back end, play with the CSS and put a little 'spit & polish' on the Web App and then we can worry about hosting.

I have just over 13 hours of studying in so far this week, it's 12:40 a.m. as I write this, I have a very busy week shoeing horses tomorrow and Friday, so I'll probably study late the next couple days. Let's do this! -Josh

End of Week 23 = 463 hours of learning Ruby on Rails!

I had to share this quote I just heard, to encourage people learning Ruby on Rails!

Quote: " That horrible feeling you get when you are struggling to learn some new facet of rails is just ignorance leaving the mind." - David Bach


I share that to encourage others who are also new to learning Ruby on Rails don't get discouraged, don't give up. Rails does a lot of magic that is hard to understand exactly what is going on sometimes.

Had a great week, studied 20.5 hours bringing my total hours of learning Ruby on Rails to 463! I finished up edX Berkeley SaaS course 169.2x on Saturday, still waiting for my final grade results.

What's next? I'm still meeting in Reston with +David Bock and +Jason Wieringa working on a pet rescue website, which is turning out really nice. I'm going to work on the pet rescue site, but also I'm going to be working on a project with my brother +Cody Kemp he's wanted to do for some time, so for now I'm working on 2 things: The pet rescue site, and an application with Cody.

I'm 22 days from April 23rd my 6 month goal. I need to keep cracking the whip learning Ruby on Rails, I want to have our web application done by April 23rd, no buts about it. I need big goals to go far, that's just the way I am. Please hold me accountable by asking how it's coming along so that I feel the pressure to get it done.

The whole purpose of this blog was to keep me accountable to study, and get stuff done,  so please comment over the next 3 weeks to help keep me on track. - Josh