Getting git

Seems I'm only as far as week 6 in terms of running through what we've been doing on the course.  That was the week I started this blog, and I had thought at this stage I'd be updating on each week 'as it happened' so to speak.  Anyway, week 6 was mostly taken up for me with trying to get a better understanding of git & github.  One website in particular proved very helpful in breaking things down into more understandable units: http://gitref.org. The section on Sharing & Updating Projects had to be consulted regularly lately once we started work on the Server Side project. 

In Client Side, we were using CSS float for positioning purposes.  This was what my first stylesheet using float looked like:

        #container {
            width: 90%;
            margin: 10px auto;
            background-color: #fff;
            border: 1px solid gray;
            line-height: 130%;
            }
        #top_banner {
            padding: .5em;
            background-color: #ddd;
            border-bottom: 1px solid gray;
            }
        #h1 {
            padding: 0;
            margin: 0;
            }
        #left_menu {
            float: left;
            width: 100px;
            padding: 10px;
            margin: 0;
            }
        #left_menu ul {margin: 0 0 1em 0;}    
        #para p {margin: 0 0 1em 0;}
        #para {
            margin-left: 125px;
            border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
            padding: .5em;
            max-width: 40em;
            }
        #footer {
            clear: both;
            padding: .5em;
            margin: 0;
            border-top: 1px solid gray;
            color: red;
            background-color: #ddd;
            }

At this stage, I'm nearly sure I understand all that. Progress!! :-)

Suggested Reading

A selection from the various reading lists provided by the lecturers on the course.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Learning Resources

One thing I've come to appreciate while doing this course is the sheer volume of learning resources that are available in the Web 2.0 world.  Books with actual pages & lectures with real people still form the foundations when it comes to learning about a new subject, but there are now many more complementary options.  One resource I've come across lately is the iTunes university.  In particular, the RailsCasts podcast series by Ryan Bates is very good.  This is episode #310, Getting Started with Rails.

See more RailsCasts at http://feeds.feedburner.com/railscasts, or if you have iTunes installed, go to the Store & search for whatever you're interested in.  You'll get podcasts & iTunes U lectures from across the world.