This week’s RailsConf has reminded me how badly I need to practice coding. Nearly every speaker I saw advocated for the need to practice explicitly or implicitly. To that end, I’m spending time shedding some coding fundamentals in Ruby. Not to be confused with developer bike shedding, for musicians the term “shedding” (or “woodshedding”) refers to the idea of heading out to the woodshed with your instrument because you sound bad. It implies that you’ve got real work to do and you need some intense practice. This typically happens out where you can make your mistakes freely, without worrying about who can hear you. As you might guess, shedding is difficult but essential and I’ve been neglecting the practice for far too long.
It’s a bit strange to have my first RailsConf also be the last. After nearly 20 years, the conference is coming to an end. Ruby Central is passing the torch on to other organizations to organize the community’s conferences. Folks have a mix of sadness and optimism. There’s an undercurrent of the unknown in many of the talks and in the atmosphere around the conference. Every mention of coding as a profession has to acknowledge the looming presence of AI and its potential impact. As someone who started learning Ruby and Rails in 2019, well after it was marked as “dead” for the third time, it would be easy to feel like I’m on a sinking ship. However, that’s not the feeling I’m left with. Why?
I have served my current school district as an Instructional Data Coach for the past two school years. Recently, I was lucky enough to chat with a director of instructional technology from a large, elite university. She started our conversation with the following question: “So, what is a Data Coach?” I had the thought that if someone of her background and experience doesn’t know, perhaps a more thorough explanation might be in order of this emerging role.
Patch requests not working but everything else is fine? Maybe you have the same problem I did.
Let’s say you’d like to implement an update route on a resource in a React-Rails app. You’ve got actions all set to go in the controller; just waiting patiently to update a section resource:
Coding can be really rewarding and it can also be really intimidating. It can challenge you in extremely unique and frustrating ways. It can also make you feel isolated if you let it. If you are someone who is new to coding and you’re not sure if is for you, you have to go to a meetup! Here’s why it will inspire you, encourage you, or just refill your coder tank.