Code Academy Week 2: The Highs Are High, The Lows Are Damn Low

Posted by Stella on Apr 25, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Two weeks ago, I started to learn Ruby on Rails through CodeAcademy. As part of the learning process, we blog each week to chronicle our progress. Here’s the lowdown on my second week and even before that, the reason I’m putting myself through this.

Week two was very emotional for me. I had a few “ah-ha” moments and more than several bang my head against the wall moments. However, things are starting to really make sense. I’ll cover three areas and how they interplay:

1) Class- For 3.5 hours three times a week, you can find me at 1871 in class. Our instructor, Jeff Cohen, is *amazing.* He has a rare gift of taking things that are seemingly impossibly complicated and reducing them to a way that everyone understands. What’s challenging is the diverse range of experience levels that are present in class…some people have programmed in other languages while others (me) have never written a line of code. Jeff somehow manages to make it work for everyone.

I love that we get to pair program. Not only do we get to meet and interact with everyone in class, but we get access to each person’s learning style and level of experience. This week, I paired with three different people who all were very different. Most importantly, early in the week I was feeling very frustrated that I wasn’t getting key concepts. When I paired, I quickly saw that not only did I understand the concepts, but my work outside of class was paying off in giving me a level of skill higher than I thought. It’s easy to feel isolated and beat yourself up when it seems like everyone is doing better/more than you…but with pair programming, I saw that I was doing just fine.

The challenging part of class if when we are given tasks to figure out in a few minutes. This reminds me of my homework assignments in organic chemistry. You would sit in class and understand what was going on, but the homework and tests would require a leap in understanding that only people naturally gifted would excel in. This is why the class average on exams hovered around a meager 50%. Ouch. I hope to get better with these challenges as things start to click more…logic is hard for me, because I always want to skip ahead and address the challenge instead of thinking about what steps I need to take before getting there.

2) Outside of Class- This week I got through the first three chapters of the Hartl tutorial. The first chapter took me over one week and it was extraordinarily frustrating because I had no clue what was going on. My friend Ryan Coon recommended I check out the Hartl screencasts this week, which was AMAZING and propelled me forward. Having someone explain and talk through a process clearly enhanced my learning and I began to really enjoy going through the tutorial. Chapter three started to look at Rails and when we covered it in class on Friday, I really understood what was going on. One thing I will say, is that the highs of getting through a task are particularly high. You feel like a master and give yourself perks like high fives, ice cream, and time away from programming (at least I do). The lows however, are EXCRUCIATING. You feel like the lowest human being with no intelligence. It’s like banging on a brick wall until finally, someone either helps or you see the stupid detail you forgot that has blocked all progress.

3) Interacting with others- I’ve set up a weekly time to meet with my tutor, Chad Hendry which I can tell will be the highlight of the week. We met at a coffee shop on Thursday and talked through some of the material I was going through in Hartl. Hearing someone talk about seemingly abstract concepts reinforces them and makes you see why they are relevant. Also, during our weekly book club, I got another sense of accomplishment. I’m really hard on myself about getting things done and am frustrated by my snail’s pace in learning this stuff. It always feel like everyone is ahead of me. However, I completed the reading for book club and felt like I understood it. When I got there, I was surprised to learn that many others were nowhere near completing that week’s assignment. Once again, I underestimated  my progress.

Learning anything, especially something so different and challenging, is all a mental game. I have to learn to be more patient and not take every roadblock as a personal affront to my intelligence.

Now it’s a matter of actually following through…

 (photo credit)

First Week of CodeAcademy: Community, Conquering, and Cranking

Posted by Stella on Apr 15, 2012 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

I’m week one into becoming a ninja Ruby developer via CodeAcademy, an immersive 11 week program that teaches Ruby on Rails. For someone with no technical background, coming to class on day one took me back to the first day of school as a kid: I had no idea what to expect and was thrilled/terrified at the same time. In the first few classes, I learned many useful keyboard shortcuts, how various languages and programs interact on the computer (terminal, textmate, etc) and a good deal about myself.

1) Community- I expected the developer community to be similarly supportive to the startup community: people would be available to answer questions and would not be afraid or threatened to lend a hand. I was, however, absolutely blown away by the sense of community at CodeAcademy. Everyone from fellow students, to the staff, to mentors who continually stay involved display such a passion for helping each other that there is someone to collaborate with 24/7. Even as a noob with self-confidence issues, I didn’t feel scared to ask when I got my first “fatal” error in terminal or when I got stuck on Chapter 1 of the Hartl Tutorial (still stuck, damn you Heroku). It feels safe to experiment and learn within a community, and I’m blown away by the level of support I’ve received so far.

2) Conquering- So, I’m someone who readily asks for help when encountering a problem. I’ve always thought it’s a waste of time to try and figure something out on your own, when someone else can show you a solution in seconds. However, this is not how programming works because even as the community is supportive, you run into so many problems that it’s imperative to learn how to troubleshoot on your own and only use the community to help you when  you’ve exhausted all other possibilities. The act of figuring out errors is a learning step, especially in Ruby where error messages are coded with hints at where you’ve made the wrong step. This is something I’m really struggling through because I have no patience whatsoever for frustration. As I go through CodeAcademy, I will just have to become much more self-sufficient and grow technically/personally. It’s amazing that in a short week I can already solve a lot of problem I would not have been able to before.

3) Cranking- This has been a week of distractions, from my customary activities of meeting entrepreneurs to blogging, to planning events for Entrepreneurs Unpluggd. I’ve already fallen behind and feel a timecrunch to getting through material. When I get frustrated, I seem to be able to find other things to do (hence this blog post before I’ve finished my other homework!) instead of cranking through my problems. Moving forward, I have to let go of other distraction to maximize my learning time with Ruby on Rails. I understand how important it is to prioritize accordingly, so execution has to follow suit! Yes, Hartl, I will get through your damn tutorial this week. At least through Chapter 3.

Fun observations:

1) Day one, I wondered what the different terms meant among “Ruby,” “Rails,” and “Ruby on Rails.” This helpful comment in a dev forum cleared things up:

ruby is a stripper.
rails is the pole.

when they get together, developers get real happy.

2) It’s funny that developers are stereotyped as huge introverts because the community itself is so interactive, helpful, and extraverted.

Why I’m Doing CodeAcademy

Posted by Stella on Apr 10, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

As a self proclaimed foodie, I love trying new restaurants and cuisines. Sometimes I am so amazed by a restaurant that I try to take a sneak peak into the kitchen to see where the dish came from. Understanding the effort that goes into making the perfect dish makes me appreciate it that much more.

For years, whenever the words “Ruby” or “API” would pop into conversation at startup events, I would inevtiably blush and bow out of conversations. “I’m not technical!” I would admit, feeling almost always inadequate. If you’re not technical, you know the uselessness you feel when there is a technical challenge and you just can’t do anything…it’s like you’re sitting on your hands and don’t know how to proceed.

Well that’s it. I’m done. It’s time to take the very scary (terrifying) plunge and become technically self sufficient. I feel very excited and lucky that an institution such as CodeAcademy  exists, so I can take all the knowledge I’ve picked up from being in the startup world and start to apply it building my very own software.

Much as I don’t plan to become a chef by wanting to learn and appreciate how a dish is made, I also have no intentions of becoming a developer. In fact, I have a very good hunch that I’m going to suck. Regardless, it’s the journey of learning and plunging into something so abstract that gets me excited.

So bring it on Ruby. I’m ready to learn, absorb, and work hard. I’m ready to start communicating with my computer and building something from the ground up.

In the meantime, you can find me at the Startup Law Summit on April 14th at 1871. Want to join? Use discount code “EUBlog” for 30% off!