I think I say this in every blog post about a project, but I am amazed at how much I have learned and how quickly. At the beginning I thought that if I moved at the pace that I am currently moving, that I would not have a very good grasp on things but it all seems to be very comfortable.
For this project the overall idea was very similar to the Sinatra project, but the ‘how’ to get it done was a good bit different, and way easier! The way Rails kind of assembles and implies things for you is a huge time saver, and it also allows for bigger projects to seem a lot more manageable. I decided to build out a ‘library’ for this project. The basic idea is that you have a specifice type of user (ie. librarians) that will add and manage books in the library, and then you will have a standard user who can check books out. My application will allow you to see books by author and genre, as well as seeing what books are checked out to you. It will tell you the due date of a book and also let you know if the book is overdue. The librarians can see a list of overdue books and to which user each book is checked out. This feels like the cleanest project I have worked on so far and I am pretty proud of it!
One big take away for me when going through the Rails section that I noticed near the end when working on the Amusement Park lab and my project, was that I am getting a lot better at troubleshooting. When I read an error now I generally know exactly where to look for the problem, whether it be a specific view, the way a form is laid out, the controller, etc. Knowing how to troubleshoot well has given me a lot of confidence in my ability to code.