Week 2 of the pre-course is over!
It seems strange to write that sentence and see it on the screen, as I am not going to lie, at times i thought i would never get there. In hindsight it was the perfect learning curve that literally explored all emotions along the way.
The course in week 2 is set out with learning material, followed by a challenge at the end of each chapter. It started off simply, exploring strings, basic mathematical expressions and getting used to writing basic real-world programmes.
But then it got what I liked to call REAL haha. Chapter 3 started to pair knowledge of writing loops, blocks and puts statements, with actual real life logical thinking! To say it struck the fear of god into me was an understatement! I could no longer google "how to break a while loop" or "multiplying integers by floating point numbers"...there was no advice/information for actual on the spot problem solving!
Whilst I initially rejected trying to listen to my own ideas, I soon realised that this is the reason i made the transition into this field. I loved having some basic understanding of Ruby methods and processes, it was now down to me to tell Ruby what exactly i wanted it to do! I wrote flow charts, diagrams, cryptic interpretations of what i thought the brief entailed, and finally i discovered a pattern and flow that would work!
This felt like i had just won the lottery, the fact that I had figured this out, understood it and it actually worked....it actually worked! This is an important milestone in my quest to become a developer, but one that I soon had to remember once i came across another question that stumped me for almost double the time. But this time I had the small belief that I overcame this style of thinking already, and that it would happen, I just need to relax and think differently.
It is inevitable I will come across this feeling again, most likely hundreds of times during my time at Makers, but the first time was the most important, knowing that if at first you don't succeed, try and bloody try again.
Week 2 is carrying on until I complete all 10 chapters of the Ruby challenges...as always wish me luck!
David
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