10-13-2014

I haven't posted in a bit. I have been hard at work learning to code.

I have worked my way through HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I was even able to make a simple mock up site with HTML and CSS. The course told me to use the bootstrap framework but I found that I could do it faster by doing the CSS my self. I showed it to my brother-in-law who said it looked good. I think he was just being nice.

I joined at local meet up group for Ruby on Rails. The next meeting is on October 22. I haven't decided if I will go yet. I tend to get a little shy as my daughter says in groups.

On a highly positive note. My father is letting me use one of my mom's old MacBooks to learn on. I've only had it a couple of days and I'm already up to speed on the Unix command line and version control with git. As soon as I get some stuff in my GitHub account I will post a link. It is amazing how much more sense the tutorials make when using a Mac. Also with it being one of my mom's it feels like she is right there pushing me to learn more.

-Ryan Smyth

9.30.2014 Day 2

I'm following the road map laid out in "No Degree, No Problem" by Joshua Kemp. This guy really impressed me with his goal to become a self-taught developer in 8 months. He started out shoeing horses and now is a junior developer. Amazing!

I hit a snag in the first step of the plan which was to buy a Mac Book. So instead my wonderful wife let me steal her old laptop and replace the OS with a Linux OS. Hopefully this wont create any issues. I've never really used a Linux system before.

I was able to get Ruby, Rails, Sublime Text and Git all set up and running correctly without doing to much Goggling. Then I  spent the last two days learning the command line.

Using the command line takes me back to when I was in elementary school and we used the old Apple IIe's. Man did I love making that triangle move around the screen. It blew my mind that you could type all these simple commands and get the triangle to move any which way.

Well tomorrow I start following a pretty hard course from a developer boot camp called Epicodus to start my journey to learning web development with RoR.

I am also looking to join a couple of Ruby meetup groups. Hopefully they wont notice my inexperience right away and I can learn a lot just hanging out with some developers.

-Ryan

9-28-2014- Day 0

My hope for this blog is to help hold me accountable in my journey to learn to program.

I plan to post at least two times a week on the progress that I am making.

About Me

I am a Master Electrician with 17 years experience and live in Lakewood, CO. I have an amazing and supportive wife and two daughters who are 4 and 2 years old.

How I got to wanting to learn to code

After 17 years of being an electrician I felt that I was missing something in my career. I felt that after all that I had accomplished and learned as an electrician was coming to a dead end. After talking with my wife about this felling we decided I should take the leap and go back to school to become an electrical engineer. 

To do this I really needed to brush up on my math. I joined a site to complete some tutorials in calculus. This site also had some videos on Java programming. I have always loved computers and having the newest technology available. I decided one night to give it a shot.When I made "Hello World!" pop up I was completely hooked and haven't been able to stop thinking about programming since. 

Luckily I have a genius brother in law who has a CS degree and graciously lets me ask him all my questions. If he doesn't know he will find an answer for me as soon as possible.

My Plan

Work my way through all the lessons at Epicodus, then dig deeper into Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. I am starting to check out some meetup groups also, but am nervous being so far out of my comfort zone around people in real life.

-Ryan Smyth