So one thing I have realized that has been both a blessing and a curse is I 1) set really lofty goals for features for my assements and 2) those typically correlate to requiring skills that are one step ahead of where I am in my “learning to develop” career. For my rails assessment it was using DataTables! If I was a true masocist I would have gone with some angular tables (which I have dabbled with previously) but I decided to go with the easier option in my opinion.
For my Sinatra assessment, I built a site to track breweries/taprooms and rate them. I also added a Google map that took the city and state you entered, geocoded it, and added markers with info to a Google map. It is definitly easier to do when using rails, but who doesn’t love a challenge?! (There may have been a hint of sarcasam in that :D )
Confession time, I took a lonnnnnnngggggggg time completing the sinatra assessment. A mix of family emergencies, being a perfectionist (at times :P ), a dash of frustration with sinatra after having experience with Rails, and one helping of laziness all led to me spending roughly a month on the assessment.
My first foray into building a gem was a fantastic learning experience! Really helped me to understand where I was lacking with regard to class scope and overall OO design. I obviously have a lot to learn, as well as some further refactoring to do, but this was hands down the best thing I have one in my quest to become more proficient in Ruby. Check out my gem on https://rubygems.org/gems/apartmenthunter or install it by running ‘gem install apartmenthunter’ and then running the command ‘apartmenthunter’ in your terminal!