Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I have learned a lot

I am still not giving up, and I put all my free time and energy resources to learn something new about Ruby on Rails. I have learned what are Models, Controllers and Views for. I knew it, from the theoretical side much earlier, but while reading the book (which by the way was written with a lot of thought) I am starting to see much broader scope of this whole Rails framework.

I have also learned working with databases. However I still do not know which one should I use? Should it be SQLite 3 due to its simplicity or maybe MySQL because of its better performance. If you have some thoughts on this issue I will be glad to to read them.

Best regards,
Bartek

Monday, January 25, 2010

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby

The chapter "Introduction to Ruby" in the Book "Foundation Rails 2.0" have cleared and systematized a lot of issues about Ruby in my head. It is really worth reading, because it will give you a lot of basic knowledge about Ruby, and the way the things are brought to you by the author is very easy to understand. So it is definitely the chapter that is worth going through if you are not familiarized with Ruby.

Now going strictly to the Rails. I hope it will go much smoother than the last times.

Wish me luck!

1st problem encountered!

I mean getter/setter methods. I don't really see the reason why they are needed.

   class Book
     def initialize(title)
       @title = title
     end

     def title
       @title
     end
 
     def title=(title)
       @title = title
     end
   end


Could someone be so nice and describe me exactly what is going on, and if so please do it without using some fancy words. 

Thanks a lot!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Foundation Rails 2

I'm still reading the book. I went through first 50 pages and I have to say that for now the book is conveying ideas quite well. I like the way the book is written. It has good introduction briefly describing what is objected oriented programming.

First chapter is devoted to Ruby which is great because I think you have to have at least basic knowledge about Ruby.

I have had enough reading for today.

I'll be back! ;)

My first post, my first experience

Time for the first post

I have heard many, many good things about Ruby on Rails framework so I decided to give it a try. I have no background in any programming language so it my be a little bit tough but I believe that there is nothing I can't do ;).

I will try to share with my feelings on all the things I am learning. I will also ask some questions (might be trivial but hey ... no one is perfect) and if you are willing to spare me some time than please do! It might soothe the harshness of learning process.

Cutting to the chase...

I straightly started to learn Ruby on Rails, which for the guy with my experience in programming wasn't very good move. After writing (rewriting) code from a book few times I thought: "Hey...I do not understand what is going on; this book is stupid. It gives to few explanations on what is going on in the code." After few similar opinions about other books I had to revise (and I think apologize the authors) that thought. It was my fault. The first bad decision was to omit learning Ruby in the first place. I am not discovering anything new - It is RUBY ON rails, and Ruby is essential part of the framework.
Few days later I had some general understanding of programming in Ruby: its syntax, main elements, etc. In fact I have finished learning Ruby yesterday so I am going back to Rails.

The book I am reading now is "Foundation Rails 2." It was recommended on few sites and the level which the book is intended for is beginner. We will see if it helps me or not.


So have hope and bare with me! (and help me!)

The one last thing I want to say to all beginners like me. Always check the version of Rails that the book was written for. You will avoid a lot of situations where something is not working. As I already noticed Ruby on Rails is a framework that is constantly developing so newer versions may approach some of the things in a different way.