The deeper I get into Rails, the more I feel like a real-life Hermione Granger. It’s magic! From a command line that seemingly gives you the world (and that’s not a huge exaggeration), to helper methods that make your controllers and views very easy to read, Rails is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s no different when it comes to querying databases.
After seven years of working at an ad agency on an insurance account, it’s hard to forget some of the knowledge nuggets that I scooped up along the way. Like Renters Insurance, who knew that was even a thing? Okay fine, a lot of people, but I didn’t. Apparently it’s also a good idea to keep track of your home inventory. That way, in case anything should happen, you’ll have a log of what you own and you’ll know the value. That’s probably what led me to creating a Home Inventory Application for my Sinatra project.
As consumers of the Internet, we all sign into some sort of account on a daily basis. If you’re anything like me, it’s multiple accounts. For the most part, it’s a pretty seamless process. I type in my username and password and press “Enter”. And if everything goes according to plan (and I can remember my password), I’m logged in and I can go about my business (let’s be honest, probably online shopping). I don’t know about you, but I’ve never given much thought to what is happening behind the scenes. That is until recently. How is a website able to differentiate me from other users? What happens to my username and password after I log in? Or what about when I log out? Well, there’s actually a lot going on from databases to sessions to cookies, and everything in between. But what I want to focus on is the flow of information between the different routes and views of an application.
I’ve never been one to pick up new languages very quickly. Sure, I took Spanish from 7th through 12th grade. And if I tried really hard I could probably recall a couple verb conjugation songs for you. But other than that I don’t think I retained a whole lot. The only thing I really remember is from 12th grade Spanish — we would spend our Fridays eating nachos and watching George Lopez — in English. I’m still taken right back there whenever I hear “Low Rider”.
As I approached my first project for Flatiron School, I had no idea what I wanted to do. The task: build an application that provides a Command Line Interface (CLI) to an external data source. It sounds simple enough (does it, though?), but the possibilities were seemingly endless. The common suggestion was to pick something I’m interested in. Well, anyone who knows me could tell you that I love Harry Potter. Maybe that could have been something if I hadn’t just thought of it as I type this. That’s okay though, I also happen to love music. I know, I know, I can’t create a Music CLI app as that is too similar to the other OO Ruby final project. But what about a Concerts CLI app? That could work…