CLI Project: All in the details

I was able to get a head start on my first CLI project in my Flatiron course, and it came in handy. With ample free time after being asked to work from home during the COVID-19 outbreak, I managed to get through the Music Library and Kickstarter projects rather quickly, leaving me three weeks to work on my CLI project.

At first, I was intimidated by being faced with a blank screen and no tests to pass. Flatiron founder Avi and I connected on Twitter, where we were scheduled to work together on building the foundation for my project on a live-stream via his Twitter the following day. He never showed. While I waited for him to ping me, I got a lot of the initial work done on my own. I am so thankful that I was left to my own devices, because what I needed to learn the most was how to figure this stuff out on my own.

Though I can’t take all the credit. I followed my instructor, Z, and her video outlining how to get everything required and set up. From there, I sought out other, finished projects and began to, ahem, borrow methods and throw stuff at the wall and see what would stick.

Initially, I was just working with the data from my API in hashes. Z encouraged me to work with objects, that was the entire point of this project. A few days later, the code was nearly complete.

I talked with my classmates, offered help to others where I could, and bothered Z every hour by sending S.O.S. messages, only to delete them before she could read them as I usually found the answer to my problem simply by working through it.

And that’s the lesson I learned from this: do the work. It’s simple, but effective. Since starting this course I have worked harder than I ever have in anything school-related. I wake up every morning at 5 a.m., make my coffee, watch videos about lions and alligators while I drink my coffee (it gets my juices goin for some reason), and then I learn and code and program.

Nothing about this project really made me feel helpless. It taught me more than any lab has so far. I finally understand what we’re donig and why we’re doing it. I hope I get more and more chances to create this way, because it was easily the most fun part of this course. I can only hope my assessment goes well, but I feel very strongly about my knowledge surroundend OO programming in Ruby.