This project was the first time I thought of my coding abilities in a real-world context. In other words, it was a paradigm shift from coding something fun for my own entertainment to thinking of what I’ve learned as skills, as job skills. What a joy: to learn something productive that is also so much fun. It’s fascinating to think of all the people involved in creating these langauges and Ruby gems, that I could be a part of something bigger and contribute to it meaningfully. Great fun.
Sinatra is powerful, but Rails is literally magic. Macro all the things! So convenient, yes, but so very easy to get lost. One line of code can do so much. Picking the write form helper method is a job in and of itself. But it’s all worth it when you finally get everything working. So satisfying.
A struggle I have been working on in this class is my perfectionism. I obsess over how clean my code looks, the aesthetic qualities of my CSS, and numerous other nitpicks. It’s important to just get things working first, and I have to constantly remind myself. I’m getting better and building new habits. It’s all about finding a balance. Style and design are still my preferred type of work, but I’m learning to prioritize function over fashion, basic function first and refactoring later.