Taking the next step (with Ruby on Rails)
My friend: Congratulations you learned Ruby on Rails!
So now you can make a website for me?
Me: Of course! What do you need a website for?
My friend: Well, I had this great idea, I want to make website where people can upload their photos and share them with their friends!
Me: Umm, well, umm, you see, umm…
My friend: What’s the problem, didn’t you learn all about databases? What’s so hard about storing photos?
Me: Well, I don’t really know how to store photos, I only learned about storing text…
You see, this isn’t a conversation that I actually had with anyone, but it is a conversation (or at least one version of a conversation) that I’ve had with myself a number of times. It happens all the time, you recently learned a new skill. But as soon as you try to show it off, you realize that you really only scratched the surface of this skill, and you realize how much you really don’t know.
Well, thank G-D, there is usually a solution to this problem, even if you won’t necessarily like all of it.
The answer usually has 2 parts:
1) Time
2) and Google
Part 1 is pretty straight forward, As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect” (or a variation of this saying that I once heard goes “perfect practice makes perfect”) the more time you spend doing something, the better you will get at said thing.
But even if you keep practicing your skill, often times your capabilities are limited by your own limited knowledge. That’s where part 2 comes in. Google is an invaluable resource (there are obviously many other resources available, depending on the individual, but Google as a resource can not be understated). If there is one thing that I’ve learned throughout my journey of learning to code; it is that if I ever have an idea that I want to try, but I have no idea how to even start, the first stop is always google.
With both of these things combined, a resource like google, to find out what is possible, and spending the time to practice all of the possibilities, the sky is the limit.
Just to give an example from my recent experience, let’s return to the beginning of this blog, where I thinking about how to store something besides text in my rails backend. So, I heard about this thing called Active Storage, but where to start? Well, if you were paying attention at all you should know the answer, Google of course! So I found the official documentation pretty easily, but that’s not helpful enough for a beginner like me. I can’t understand half of the terminology that I need in order to get started. So, continuing with my search, reading many different blogs and StackOverflow posts etc. I finally found a blog that was helpful from a beginners perspective.
So this was part 1. What was part 2? Time. This means putting in the hours (days, weeks) actually writing the code for implementing Active Storage, getting frustrated with errors, making mistakes, finding solutions, asking friends and teachers, until finally, slowly, piece by piece things come together and I will finally feel comfortable with the concepts. Without putting in the time, I can understand all of it from today ‘til tomorrow, but I won’t have the same level of comfort as somebody that actually put in the hours.
While we are on the subject I will include some links that I have found helpful in my research of Active Storage.
Conclusion:
Sometimes it seems that some things are too difficult to master. Don’t be scared off by a daunting new project or bit of technology. Remember the tools you have in your toolbox, do your research, put in the effort and you can master anything if you put your mind to it.
