42 is always the answer or How I made my first Rails App
This blog post is less about what I did and more about what happened to me during the process. I began thinking about my Rails project for Flatiron from the first lab. I am a big picture kind of gal. Every lab I did and every lesson I read I began piecing out how I was going to build out my app. The working idea was to expand my Sinatra App, I made a simple gratitude Journal and took a step further and deployed it. I wanted to add to that and see how I could with Rails.
As the end of the lessons crept ever closer I kept notes on what and how things were going to look. I had never been able to visualize a project while doing the lessons before. I finally finished the last lesson and decided that I would start fresh in the morning building out my app.
I have to say that the hardest thing I have had to adjust to in the whole curriculum is going from 100% Test Driven Development to and empty code file. I have gotten pretty good at reading errors and deciphering the cryptic messages.
I spent the next week building out my app. During this week I had a planned vacation to go on so I decided to bring the good old laptop with me because I really wanted to get this project done. As I was on a plane that had no Wifi I figured what better time than a 4 hour flight to work on my project.
At one point I opened up Chrome to look up an error and I realized.. oh no… I am cut off from all of the other Developers out there. NOOOOOO! How am I ever gonna figure this out without Google or Stack Overflow?????
I did not let the panic set in. I took a 10 min break and had some bad airplane coffee and thought about the error. Now here is the thing, I don’t ever really sit and stare off into space thinking about my code. I probably should more often. As I was going thru the lines of code in my head it clicked what I was missing. I flipped open the laptop and tried my solution, and it worked!
Since I would be on the plane for a few more hours I decided to repeat my new found solution to every error. I was surprised to find I knew more than I thought I did.
Somewhere during all my labs and lessons something stuck.
Somewhere 42,000 feet above the ground I realized that I really am a Web Developer.
