Since June of this year, I’ve been attempting to learn web development through books and online resources. I'v read Apprenticeship Patterns, Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, Learn Python the Hard Way, and many other books. I’ve tried codeschool, codeacademy, treehouse, codewars and an assortment of other sites posting tutorials. I’ve signed up for email newsletters, added blogs to my rss reader, and listen to half a dozen different podcast. And after all that, I still feel like a beginner.

When I started this, I was thinking of picking up a few skills to add to my resume. As a college dropout, I didn’t see many options for myself and I couldn’t bring myself to go back to school without a clear plan. The past few years before then left such a bad taste in my mouth that I was striving for a complete do over. So many of my peers were talking about their passion and I’ve been desperately trying to find mine.

I went through several rabbit holes and I found myself doing the web design course track at treehouse. Once coding came into the picture, I was hooked. At first, I didn’t know what I found so appealing about it but it was amazing to figure out what went into creating a website. Following through from design to user interface to user authentication to database calls. Half of things I saw didn’t make sense but I took a little bit of what did and applied it. I went through multiple course tracks and multiple learning plans trying to absorb as much information as I can.

The past few months have been like solving a jigsaw puzzle. I take the pieces I find along the way and try to see if they fit together. Sometimes I can see the bigger picture and sometimes I don’t, but the pieces themselves feel like precious gemstones waiting to be cut, polished and inlaid someday. It really makes the term “ruby gem” much more appropriate.

This blog will be about that. I’ll try to make sense of what I find and pick up more things along the way. Also, after further consideration, I’ve decided to ammend that first paragraph. I’m somewhere between advanced beginner and competent on the way to become proficient.