MA Precourse Week 3

What was done

• More learning and practising ruby coding
• Finish of all the problems set in Chris Pines Learn to Program
• More code wars katas

What was learned

• How to work with tests
• Practising more Git and command line
• Understanding more about blocks, procs and lambdas (well not that much of this)
• Always check the tests first before doing the coding, I would end up using different names which would automatically fail the test otherwise.

Struggles

• Chapter 14 of Chris Pine. This was all about procs and blocks, which I have always struggled on, but after reading a few tutorials I feel semi confident.
• Make a better shuffle play list (last exercise in chapter 11). I just could not pass the tests, although I felt my code was good.
• Need to put issues have on github and get help from my cohort, instead of struggling. I am just spending lots of time on a problem which could be solved with some help. Although, I do believe that the struggle is also helpful, but I will need to get through so much work in the coming months that I need to prioritise my time.
• I had a persistent cough as a side effect of last week's flu. This stopped me from coming to Ace hotel, as I did not want to pass on my virus and disrupt every one. I am very considerate.

Other

• Set up a meeting to do some pair programming with my mentor on Monday
• On Friday, I attended the graduation ceremony for the seniors at Makers. It was great seeing all the  projects, and was impressed by the number of new technologies that they had to learn to get their applications working. Also good to meet and my cohort, and see how much fun and camaraderie between all the students and coaches. I am super excited to get starting full time, but also nervous with all the new stuff that I will have to learn. 
• Code wars rocks, not only for learning how to solve problems and practise syntax, but also in terms of friendly competition within my cohort (we have a leader board). Currently I am 3rd, although I had an unfair advantage as I did a lot of code wars before my interview at Makers to help me decide if I wanted to move into coding. I must say, code wars is probably the number one activity that has made me want to be a programmer. 

Blog struggles

• I think I will have to give up doing the whole music section, unless it is really straight forward. It is taking me too long to search for music with some relation to the ideas studied, so will stop putting music unless it is on the first few pages of YouTube search results.
• Same applies to images and gifs on Google search. Thus my blog is not going to be great to look at, but I will have images of my adventures in Makers which should make up for it.