Finished a rails app

It took me all day--including several breaks to do some job hunting, updating websites, and buying two domain names--but I finished the whole Ruby on Rails introduction guide, and I understand for the most part what's going on. It seems like Rails is best for multi-user support, which is the main reason why I think startups are so "on it" now, especially the ones that revolve around social networking.

The mvc infrastructure is actually quite a piece of art. Rails is so well integrated within itself that it really isn't that difficult to create and move things around, particularly when you get to writing the different views and methods. Of course, writing views takes some html/js/css knowledge... so I'll get to that. Posted the outcome on github (or should be up shortly after this update).

Gameplan now? Get back to rubying. I fixed up secret santa a bit more so there are 4 less variables and all the data is stored within one array instead of the 4 or 5 I had before. Next step is to implement STDIN to save a group of information into the array, and then it should be at its final stage of development.

Then, it's onto the next ruby quiz I want to check out.

So... new week, new goals. HTML and CSS reviewfest, and if all goes according to plan, get that website cranked out!

Rails for Zombies

It took me about 4 hoursish to get through all of Gregg Pollack's Rails for Zombies training, which is really just a short introduction to its infrastructure, the mvc framework, and some quick guides on making models (which looks like are just Ruby classes) views, and controllers. Honestly, I think it was a bit much for me to do over two days. Pollack suggests learning Ruby code first, which after a couple weeks of Rubying, I honestly feel "okay" with it, but aside from some design details, I don't see much of Ruby in Ruby on Rails. Maybe I'm not looking at it correctly, but it felt like a completely new language to me.

I'm going to review all of this tomorrow and post something a bit more insightful to show what was learned and then design a blog app using my own material instead of Google's. Unless this becomes a complete blunder, expect a transition by the end of this week to a own domain, which will include this blog in Rails, a personalized about me to toss the about.me website, and whatever other nonsense I can come up with for it. Should have a better idea of what that will look like tomorrow. In the mean time, time to continue fooling around with Rails.