do you want to have a conversation with this person?

I made this silly little web app a while back, but I wanted to modify it so that the user could communicate in an IRC-type format. It's not perfect, but this is pretty much what it's like to talk to me anyway. I included a screencap with the code to demonstrate how ridiculously simple this was. It only took me a month to learn the tools I'd need to write it. Aw yeah.

ruby koans - begin!

I'm coming down with something. I'm bummed because I would like my brain to be at its peak operating power for studying - and also because I feel obligated to not go anywhere to prevent infecting others, and that's boring.

I started up Ruby Koans just a few minutes ago (I'm going to wrestle my foggy head into submission, or at least fail spectacularly) and after the first challenge, my terminal returned back to me this quote:

learn the rules so you know how to break them properly

That's a nice quote. Ruby, you're kind of like that boyfriend who is too good to be true and you probably have some secret baggage that's going to destroy everything we've built so far but I don't know it yet, but right now I really like you and I want you to meet my parents.

libraries

My new study partner, Nathan, and I figured out what libraries are all about earlier today. We didn't know what this line of code that said require 'date' was all about, so we commented it out, and then had an "ah-ha!" moment. It's a library! It's something fun built in to Ruby that you can just pull out when you need it. Just like Sinatra is also a library?

Unfortunately, then we both learned that neither of us was accepted to the internship. Ultimately, I'm kind of okay with that. I'm just barely scratching the surface of what Ruby can do, and I'm sure in a few months I'll look back and laugh at my pathetic attempts. I taught myself how to knit almost five years ago, and it was a long process, and I am still learning things to this day. So I'll just stick with it and some day I'll be as good a programmer as I am a knitter. Because I'm pretty good at knitting. 

Also, it helps a ton to have a person to bounce ideas off of! Even though I didn't produce anything during our several-hour study session, I feel like I reinforced some concepts, and "ah-ha!" moments are worth like 1,000 points.

jenna gains a level!

If I haven't outed myself as a total video game nerd, I'll do so right here. The last few weeks studying Ruby almost non-stop, I've felt guilty about doing anything else. My stress levels were also probably higher than they should have been, if my dreams about getting speeding tickets and moving back into an old, moldy apartment were any indication. I'd take little breaks but always, in the back of mind, was this little ruby nagging at me that I wasn't done.

So today was kind of nuts, then. I slept poorly, woke up feeling a little crazed, but I got right into it and by early afternoon I'd completed my first ever web app (can you tell I'm excited about it?). And it was like how I imagine you feel when you level up. Jenna gains +1 intelligence! Jenna gains +2 vitality! Jenna learns a new ability: guilt-free resting! I'm a pretty instinctual person, so I rolled with it. I submitted my internship application (while it might seem like it, I was not doing all this purely for fun), feeling like I'd accomplished everything I set out to do. I may be wrong. But it felt right!

Then I caught up on a knitting project, watched that episode of True Blood I missed (this is serious stuff), and now it's almost two hours until my modified bedtime and I'm not even tired and kind of bored. I'll get back to the coding once my brain muscles have a chance to rest, but I'm still riding the wave of tiny victory.

my first ever web app - in 10 minutes!

With the guidance of AppFog's Alex (who, as you should know, is the best climber at the rock gym), I created my first web app with about zero skill or frustration. It's free to sign up with 2GB of memory. Getting started stumped me because I didn't realize the secret was the "Download Source Code" button.

So clicking that downloads all these files to your desktop, including one called app.rb (since I'm doing this in Sinatra, which I don't even know how to use!), which you can seriously just paste code into. I used a super-simple array full of things I usually say. Ideally, I'd like to modify it so that users can input some text and talk back to me. This will be handy in case people ever miss my witticisms while I'm sleeping.

So, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me. And then, when you're done with that, make your own elementary apps. Or good apps, whatever.

the things i've been doing

I started off on my first day of Ruby learnin' with TryRuby.org.
Then I spent the better part of a whole evening setting up my Ruby and Rails environment as instructed by Railscast #310.
After that, I had a pleasant breather with Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby.
Then I really put the nose to the grindstone with (so far!) my favorite tutorial, Ruby in 100 Minutes from JumpStartLab.
Looked at Rails for Zombies, got confused, ran away.
Found Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, got overwhelmed...ran away.
So I started playing RubyWarrior, got to level 4, got stuck. Read a ton of documentation, asked some friends, stayed stuck.
Started a simple unit converter project, (have I mentioned I got stuck?) got stuck, finally figured it out, wanted to add some text prompts, got stuck again.
Came back to Rails for Zombies, started getting the hang of it (!!), felt I needed more basics, went back to Ruby.
Currently plowing through Learn Ruby the Hard Way, where I'm learning lots!

Short-term goals:
Work on that unit converter so it asks you politely (or not) what units you'd like to convert from/to, and outputs the result in a polite (or not!) manner.
Make a GitHub repo.
Write a text-based adventure! Because everyone loves those!
Write a web app that takes all of my common words and phrases and randomizes them into strings of speech so that I basically never have to speak again. My reactions and responses to things are pretty generic, anyway, and usually involve something about "butts," "whales," or "bacon."

this is getting serious

I woke up this morning to shut my blinds and my sleep-addled brain was trying to define a method for my actions.

def close_blinds
    puts "go back to sleep, jenna, you have no idea what you're doing"
end