It’s a wonderful week…
It’s a wonderful week…
Unlike my previous blog posts that were about specific topics, this one will be a little less focused. I’ve had a pretty full week, with lots of exciting stuff, and wanted to share some of it.
Linux Redux
I guess the first item on the list is that I finally joined the geek side and installed Ubuntu.
This was something I was pushing off for a while, and so glad I finally did.
Up to that point, I’ve been learning to code on Learn’s IDE; a marvel of modern day engineering that allows students on multiple platforms to code on Learn’s remote servers and having that code sync automatically to their own environment.
Such a setup is necessary for students just starting out on their coding journey, where having them set up a local environment, without the technical know how, would waste precious time better used elsewhere.
The goal, however, is to eventually let go of the training wheels, and a few weeks ago Avidor from Flatiron contacted me regarding setting up locally. He offered to send me a USB flash drive with Ubuntu installed along with instructions to dual boot it on my PC.
My USB feeling right at home. Notice the Learn logo taped on.
I was pretty excited, I’ve always been curious about Linux, but it all sounded kinda intimidating, but then again, everything I was doing at that point would have sounded intimidating to me just a few months ago.
The flash drive arrived in the mail just at the time we were going through a move, so I figured my Linux adventure would wait. Then I got busy with my Rails project (see next section) so I waited some more.
At the end of last week, I finally concluded that I had waited enough and decided to go for it.
I was a bit intimidated at first, but thanks to some great friends the entire process ended up being easy as π!
To start with, Avidor sent ultra clear instructions along with the USB, and the version of Ubuntu he sent came preloaded with some of the more useful apps.
That coupled with all of the help I got from my Learn Neighbor Tracy Holmes, who took it as her pet project to introduce me to Linuxland, was all I needed to get started.
I’ve been exploring this new world for a week now and can’t wait to see what else is in store.
Assessment aside…
Next thing I wanted to share is that I passed another milestone on Learn.co!
After working on FlyLog for 2 weeks. Building it, tweaking it, debugging it, adding features, fixing bugs introduced by said features, fixing bugs introduced by said bug fixes, and in general not getting much sleep. I finally decided it was ready for me to show off to one of the Instructors at my assessment.
FlyLog
Throughout the Learn curriculum, there are 5 assessments where you review a project you worked on with one of the instructors. This was my third assessment (Assessment number 1 was when I made my CLI Ruby gem and assessment number 2 was after my Sinatra project).
For this assessment, I was assigned to Corinna who was very accommodating with my work schedule and agreed to meet at 9:15 PM.
After some hiccups getting TeamViewer to work and then switching to Zoom , we finally settled for a very enjoyable 45 minutes of talking code.
I got to show her my app and hear some of her great suggestions. At the end, I passed with flying (FlyLog?) colors! After all the hours I put into this project it was definitely nice to hear that from her.
Show me the money!
The third thing on my list is a bittersweet milestone I just passed. Today marks exactly 7 months since I enrolled in Learn, and my credit card was charged the 8th monthly payment.
The reason this is such a milestone is because Learn caps their tuition payments at 8 months, so even if it takes you a long time to graduate, you don’t pay more than 8 months tuition. So this payment essentially marks my last payment to Learn.
my feelings about reaching this milestone are mixed. On the one hand it’s a bit of a disappointment that I didn’t complete my starting (and somewhat unrealistic) goal of finishing the program in 4–6 months, but on the other hand, it frees me from the stress of rushing to finish quicker because “time is money”.
I can now relax with the knowledge that no matter how long it ends up taking me to complete my goal, and no matter how much I stress over the coming projects, at least I don’t have to worry about the stress of financing an ever-lengthening timeline.