Another year dumber
It seems I’ve swapped one vice for another; in foregoing the purchase of cigarettes I seem to have got into the habit of a stiff drink or two in the evening. Which I guess is an improvement? Either way it’s a little on the self-medicating side, and seems to be about calming my jangly nerves. So I happen to be nice and relaxed at this exact point in time.
After more than a year of avoiding anything remotely resembling work for anyone else, I have finally caved and agreed to try a spot of Ruby on Rails for an old friend (hence the previous post). It’s amazing how incompetent I feel trying to get up to speed with Ruby, Rails, Git etc. It makes me feel so incredibly thick, typing commands I don’t recognize toward an end I don’t yet understand. I guess it offers a glimpse into life for those who don’t have an understanding of software on any level– so pretty much every task seems like some kind of tediously bureaucratic black magic. I’ve always needed to understand something from the bottom up before I feel competent at it, but there are so many layers to technology these days that understanding all of them becomes almost a fulltime job in itself. I need to be more comfortable with knowing just enough to get by.
Also, I’m seeing a girl, who is both smart and cute. Just thought I’d slip that in when you weren’t expecting it. And I just turned 39, which is practically 40, so the combination of those two things makes me want to transform into that respectable version of myself, who doesn’t dodge the question “What are you working on?”, or even the more general “What do you do?”
To put it in more plain terms… I really need to be less of an idiot, and just set about getting my shit together without forever throwing my hands up and asking nobody in particular “when will I get my shit together?” I don’t think that epiphany I’m always hoping for is ever going to come; I just need to grow up before all the people who seem to have an amazing amount of faith in me finally stop giving me the benefit of the doubt.
ha! after years in the MS world – and not having weekend projects i do for fun(!) – all this OpenSource methodology for installing stuff via git, gem and pip had me gritting my teeth! luckily i had spent a week studying django before i got down with RoR.
I’m also uncomfortable not understanding it inside and out, then there are all those mysterious rake and bundle incantations.
At least someone packaged rails up nicely for windows.
Well I’m glad it’s not just me being a thicko
A lot of my problems getting set up were related to trying to use a newer version than that which is included with OS X. The whole business made me long for an all-in-one installer a la Windows (which I am stubbornly refusing to even boot up for now)
Still no epiphany?
But … but you got a haircut!
Happy Birthday Mark! I don’t know whether that’s the response you wanted, but hey, if someone gives me a chance to avoid a belated happybday then I take it!
Rails is a monster when you first start.
I’ve been a RoR coder for ~2 years now, it took me about a year to get comfortable with all the tech involved, although I made quite a few useful things long before that point.
I also hated git, but now can’t let a day pass without a git push.
..and speaking of open source, have you considered opening up jujuedit?
I still use the editor on an almost daily basis, and would love a chance to add a few things..
Hopefully you answer that in the evening ;)