Curves on the Rails

I finally finished a lot of the basic context in my TreeHouse Ruby on Rails track.  I learned about Git, Ruby Basics, the command line, and a host of other basic skills.  These skills were all explained in perfect detail and offered way more hand holding than was needed.

Then I started the Build a to do list application with Jason Seifer.  If you have read my previous review of Seifer's Ruby Basics class you know that in that one he moved slowly and spoke in clear terms.  In that course, it seemed almost to be a little bit too slow.  In this one, Seifer is racing through making this application.  There is an initial explanation of the directories that "rails new" makes and then we are off to the races.  For someone with little to no experience this is kind of silly.  While there is some loose theoretical explanation, mot of it is really brief or totally absent.  There are also a host of version problems with the tutorial which I had to battle with uninstalling the newest Ruby and working backward to what Seifer uses.  

I am wondering how this could happen.  TreeHouse, to this point, has been very clear and if you are paying attention you can learn.  This is why I was happy to plunk down $25 for it this month, it was a service that was excellently done and I have been exceedingly satisfied until this course.  This one harkens back to CodeAcademy in that you are just kind of dumped into the middle of it with very little explanation.  I am writing this blog entry now from a decisive point in the road.  I am 9 videos in and am pondering if it is worth finishing.  I am not getting much out of it outside of some practice copying code into the editor.  

That said, I think sometimes you just have to trust in the process.  I am going to finish the chapter and get it done.  Perhaps I am learning more than it appears!  Signing off.

Code Report!

Resources in Progress:
Total hours into Programming: 100 (2 since last time )
Days into Programming/Hours per day: 2.8 Hours Per Day (Goal:3.0)

Progress on Gaddis' Starting out with Python: Done With Chapter 1, Appendix A,B

Progress on Shaw's Learning Ruby the Hard Way: Finished Exercise 1-13

My Text game: 3 hours, 118 lines

TreeHouse (2581 Points, 32 Badges)

Code Academy Points: (743 points, 76 badges)

Progress on Hartl's Tutorial Ready to start Chapter 3! 

Resources Finished:
Josh Kemp's No Degree, No Problem 8/14/2015

Chris Pine's Learn to Program 8/9/2015

TreeHouse Make a Website Track 8/17/2015

TreeHouse Ruby Basics 8/20/2015
TreeHouse JavaScript Basics 8/22/2015
TreeHouse Console Foundations 8/24/2015 
TreeHouse Git Basics 8/25/2015
TreeHouse Installing a Ruby Environment 8/26/2015

Code Academy Make a Website Course 7/29/2015

Code Academy Ruby Course 8/5/2015

Code Academy HTML and CSS Course 8/24/2015