Slaying the Ruby Gym Godzilla

#beginners #ruby

Ruby Gym was the definition of delayed gratification. At first, taking on each exercise was challenging and frustrating to be honest, but I tried to carve out a chunk of time each day to chip away it. At the Leap Year exercise, I felt stuck for some time but decided to walk away from it and sure enough the following day it took me 10 minutes to wrap my head around how I wanted to finish my code. I think at the Secret Encoder exercise I finally felt like I was "getting it". I realized writing code is feeling so much more gratifying with a couple of wins under my belt. I am definitely feeling more confident each day. Here are some big takeaways from completing the Ruby Gym module:

The .each method is super helpful to access objects within an array and apply some action/block of code to each item. It really is a powerful method that I will use with large collections of data.
The .gsub method is my best friend. No, but in all seriousness, it is super helpful for reformatting characters. I will end up using it a lot in the future.
Instead of trying to work hastily and inadvertently make a problem more complicated, remember to break down complex problems into smaller parts (thank God for sticky notes). On a couple of the Ruby Gym exercises I found myself working hastily but not efficiently. I ended up having to work longer and inefficiently since I made mistakes I later needed to clean up within my code.

Altogether, the Ruby Gym exercises were tough but definitely gratifying. I am novice when it comes to this coding game, but I am definitely excited for what the future holds. I will continue to work hard and persevere. Onward and upwards my friends!