I started to review the programming books that I once spent every day and most of my time on in preparation for a new project.
As I traveled to and from New York over the past few days, I made the time to review the latest versions of Agile Web Development with Rails and Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial, both recently updated for the newest version of Rails (3.2).
I have not finished the books yet, but I was amazed about how my understanding of what I was reading has changed since I first embarked on this journey to learn how to code. When I look at code I can identify the different parts of it, most of the syntax I can identify with reasonable comfort, and if there is something I don’t understand I no longer just gloss over it – I think about what it could mean and then I go look it up or figure it out.
While I would say I am still at an early stage of effectively reading code, it is a giant leap forward and revelation for me personally. And while I do recognize that I still have a long way to go in terms of writing code, I was very pleased and empowered by this experience. It gets kind of addictive once the ball gets rolling, and the key I’ve learned over the past two weeks is to look at code, and try to write some code everyday.
Keep refreshing your mind and maintain consistency, and the concepts will start making sense…eventually.