I’m almost on the other side of project one! I’m ready to move on for sure. Building my CLI data gem has certainly been a lesson in humility. It’s given me all the feels- I’ve been discouraged, overwhelmed, excited, afraid, hopeful and pretty much every other emotion under the sun. I’ve been climbing this Ruby mountain and have just about reached the top and I really wanted to get there on my own or at least mostly on my own. Let me be a cautionary tale, it will take exponentially longer if you don’t ask for help when you need it.
Time has not been on my side over the last few months, life has been pummeling me with curve balls left and right lately. It’s not an excuse just a reason for why this has taken me so long to complete but complete it I did. That feels really good to say. I felt like I was falling so far behind and maybe I wasn’t quite ready for this but giving up wasn’t an option. I really want this for myself, and I know we’re all here to make a change for ourselves.
The project instructions alone are enough to incite panic and then staring at that blank page, I felt confused and lost. It had taken me more time to get here than I would have liked and now I felt like I was struggling again. I’ve always felt like a bit of a perfectionist and that was really a detriment while in project mode. My first couple of attempts ended up in the trash so to speak. So let me pass on a few things that I think were helpful.
Make sure to watch these videos, and then watch them again, and again. They help!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lDExWIhYKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5X6NRQi0bU
Read other students blog posts about their project experiences, I found this super helpful. Knowing that I wasn’t alone in my confusion or hitting a block was comforting, plus I found answers to questions I had that helped me move ahead with my own code.
Use your resources, join those study groups, use Slack, and talk to your coaches. I definitely think that I should have done more of all of these things while I was working on my project and maybe I would have been able to complete everything a little sooner. But if you’re having a tough time, remember to give yourself a break, literally and figuratively. Writing code is hard and being hard on yourself can make things even more difficult.
I feel a bit better about my scraping knowledge now, however, it’s still a tough concept. I really recommend checking out Jen Hansen’s scraper checker here (thanks for the tip, Beth!):
https://repl.it/@jenn_leigh_hansen
While this was quite the undertaking for me, I feel really proud that I accomplished something. And in the future, I can add to and improve on what I’ve already written. Definitely looking forward to continuing to expand my knowledge!