This post is kind of a rework of my original first blog post. I originally was starting with Launch School, but life got busy and in the way, so I had stopped working through that and would regroup later. I took a break and ended up going into learning functional programming for a bit. Also started to reconsider whether Ruby was still worth learning. Ruby appears to be maturing and isn’t the new kid on the block anymore, but still is widely used. I figured I needed to completely finish learning Ruby so I have a deeper understanding of programming in an Object Oriented Language. Around the same time as I was thinking about going back into it, FlatIron School released/announced their online Community-Powered Bootcamp.
Much of it felt similar to what I was doing with Launch School, but it had a fully integrated environment. I decided to give it a shot and am quickly surpassing where I was when I left Launch School. Really digging its approach of using a test-driven assignment program and its use of git for submitting assignments. Seems more real world leaning than a mix of videos and just reading material and doing stuff on your own until you have to find time to schedule with one of their testers.
Now onto my back story and why I want to learn software development:
I could say my initial programming roots originally started when I first studied Computer Science in high school using C++. I had a very excellent teacher that encouraged me to go far. For me, though, it started around the age of nine or ten, my Dad had a QBASIC book in the computer room area. Learning to build my own text adventures and goto loops were quite fun. It sparked something in me from a young age to have an interest in programming. Now back to my path after high school.
I pursued Computer Science at my local University as well. The initial classes were also done in C++, so I had some familiarity. Even had a class in assembly. Soon enough though, the classes got very large and impersonal, with very little help unless you were a Masters student. A large percentage of the non-Masters students including myself moved over to Management Information Systems. I ended up having to take another programming course, this one was in Visual Basic. Me and my fellow students from Computer Science showed the class no mercy and did very well.
I still carried a love for programming and dabbled here and there with HTML, CSS, and a hint of JavaScript and PHP when needed. Mostly helped friends or non-profits I was associated with to build websites. I always wanted to get back into programming, but just had life get in the way and no easy way to get back into it. Despite many false starts in various free courses from things like edX or Coursera, and several different paid small course programs, never have been able to get back into the swing of things.