Finish Ruby Foundations or Build Simple App?

Hey Michael, I understand where your coming from because I think doing the projects is generally a little bit more interesting than doing the deep dives. In some ways I actually think the projects are better to do first because you see what can be accomplished and it makes it more interesting to go back later and immerse yourself in the more technical stuff. I had the same problem you are describing when I was going through the javascript deep dive, it all seemed overly technical and I didn't fully understand yet what it would be used for. One thing I did that helped me a lot was doing the javascript course at codecademy.com. I noticed that they have a ruby on rails course, too. I just mention this because doing the course over there gave me a good overview of what can be done AND the technical stuff and it made me more excited to come back to the treehouse courses. It was much easier to sustain my interest level afterwards.

I find practical work is always more exciting than theory - who doesn't right? Having said that, I went straight into the Rails projects and couldn't tell what was Ruby and what was Rails. I got pretty lost pretty quickly! I've now got a handle on it - but only after going through a lot of the Rails project videos multiple times! So now I'm going back through the theory stuff, which I wish I did before I started.

Get this, I have also been taking actual, real life, pen and paper notes on the rails guides #needtogetoutmore

Which ever way you approach it, if you want to put Ruby and Rails in your brain, you'll make it happen.

Hi, Michael Bardwell-Scott:

The Ruby Foundations course is a deep-dive and is not a project-based course; accordingly, it's making sure you have a comprehensive understanding of Ruby--what most would expect from a deep-dive.

If you want to see how to best apply what you've learned from the Ruby deep-dive series, fortunately Treehouse has a lot of project-based Ruby courses you can take.

Learning a variety of the the essentials of a language can be boring at times, but it's essential information if you want to be a good Ruby on Rails developer beyond the projects or memorizing making certain types of apps.

You may not appreciate all the knowledge of the course now, but you will eventually need to know majority of it throughout your journey making Rails apps beyond the courses here.