Ruby, RSpec, Linux and Relational Algebra (or "What I'm doing this Christmas")

Last week was challenging- I'm beginning to appreciate the need for a programming buddy. So far, I haven't found a Ruby IDE that helps with missing brackets or illegal syntax. This means hours spent looking for errors which more experience (or an IDE) would have solved in an instant. I've spent a lot of time on Stack Exchange looking for solutions to problems that many have already had- so far I haven't had to post a single new question (though it's evident that many people post duplicate questions, not having looked for a solution first).

I spent longer on the Ruby project than anticipated, BUT I really enjoyed learning about Behaviour Driven Development. Thinking of tests in RSpec and then watching my Ruby script pass (eventually) was like passing an exam (though one I had written myself).
This week I'll be starting Rails-after I complete the CodeSchool Rails courses I'll go on to their RSpec course.

Partly for the geek cred, partly out of curiosity I setup Ubuntu on my laptop a few days ago. There have been Wireless issues which appear to be common with v14.04 and my card. Having tried all the fixes suggested with no improvement, I just moved myself closer to the router (all problems have a solution.) I had been using the command line previously for things like Git and IRB but this is really forcing me to become a Command Line padawan.

My goal this week is to complete Web Development 101 and get stuck into Ruby programming (the 3rd of 7 courses). At the moment I'm doing basic SQL through the Stanford Introduction to Databases course-so far, so straightforward.

Other courses are really being set aside at the moment-the Odin Project curriculum is wide ranging and engaging as well as time consuming. I'm trusting it to give me a solid foundation that I can then expand on. For example, algorithms will be covered in a later course-I may hold off on working through the entire algorithms course until I finish the Odin Project.

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Einstein's Logic Puzzle (SPOILER ALERT!)

On Monday I began working through a Discrete Math textbook in preparation for some courses I'll be taking in January. There was a beautiful logic problem in Chapter 1, apparently created by Einstein. This is one version of it: Five men with different nationalities and with different jobs live in con secutive houses on a street. These houses are painted dif ferent colors. The men have different pets and have dif ferent favorite drinks. Determine who owns a zebra and whose favorite drink is mineral water (which is one of the favorite drinks) given these clues: The Englishman lives in the red house. The Spaniard owns a dog. The Japanese man is a painter. The Italian drinks tea. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left. The green house is immediately to the right of the white one. The photogra pher breeds snails. The diplomat lives in the yellow house. ...

Venturing into Number Theory

In attempt to solve a maths problem with Ruby, I discovered the benefits of going beyond simple arithmetic. Perhaps surprisingly, many seemingly complex mathematical problems can be solved using basic arithmetic and raw computing power. Most of the time this doesn't pose a problem. However, as the values involved grow larger, the demands on the computer's memory reaches a critical point beyond which you risk crashing your computer. The problem I was trying to solve was the following: What is the smallest positive number that is evenly divisible by all of the numbers from 1 to 20? After causing my computer to hang for several minutes, I realized I had to rewrite the program I was working on. The program had to take shortcuts, so that instead of testing every single value between 1 and 1 million, it only tested likely values. With the help of my lovely wife (a Maths teacher) I rewrote the program using prime numbers. class SmallestProduct requ...

CodeSchool vs Codecademy(or 'How socket inherits event listening methods and implements asynchronicity')

In this review I'm going to focus on the pedagogy that I see evident in some CodeSchool courses and compare them to Codecademy. By pedagogy, I mean: 'How does CodeSchool teach?' and ' Does it do a good job of teaching?'. I'm going to argue that despite high quality videos, colourful web pages, and often ssspppeeeeeakkkiiiing...rrrreeally...slowly..., CodeSchool's pedagogy is inferior to that of Codecademy. There are many fantastic resources for learning to code on the web, and CodeSchool is one of them. So far I have completed courses in Ruby, Rails, Javascript, HTML/CSS, Jquery and Git on CodeSchool. The courses have all included high quality videos and colourful, interactive exercises- as well as massive pdf files of the slides ( the files take more than a minute to load on my machine .) The question is: does the higher production value mean better educational quality? The 'Try' courses on CodeSchool(such as Try Ruby and Try jQuery) are f...

Programming on the Wall

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