Monday, March 8, 2010

Day 44

I need to make this quick since I have to get up quite early. Commuting really makes you feel how short a day can really be. When you get up early, and suddenly its time to sleep, you really notice those 3-4 hours lost everyday in transit.
I've made a fair amount more progress in the Rails book. I really enjoy how this book teaches you how to make a full project, start to finish, as well as giving you extra side tasks to get on your own. It seems like this is the most effective way of learning, and is beginning to make me critical of all those classroom lectures, and tedious homework assignments which took your step by step through the learning process without having you actually do anything memorable. I think that a class structured around a single big project, coupled with many side tasks and activities to help accomplish the main task would be far more effective than flurries of small side projects that you forget the moment you hand them in.

Tomorrow I should be finishing up my task at the client site. Micah is gone on a conference so I am in Chicago working alone with the client. My biggest problem is encountering mental blocks, where some little missing detail prevents me from putting the full puzzle together. At the moment, this mental block is stopping me from both testing, and seeing how the next step will work. Hopefully tomorrow morning I will have time enough to collect that detail and fit it into place.

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