Knowing The Deepest Levels of Software

Today I started going through the Rebuilding Rails book and was able to finish Chapters 1 and 2. One of the main things that I learned was how to build a gem and use it in another app.

Here is a quote from he book:

Knowing the deepest levels of any piece of software lets you master it.

I don’t want to be ‘just’ a programmer that builds web apps. I like to create things, and I also want to build tools that help me be a better programmer. I think there is great leverage in using Frameworks and other tools, but I do think there is a clear distinction in the type of programmer that is boxed into only being able to do what the framework provides and doesn’t have the ability to create supporting tools, gems, or whole new frameworks.

I was talking with my boss yesterday and he is going to let me rewrite one of our smaller php applications into a Rails application. I think it is a huge opportunity for me and I’m super excited that I get to work in ruby at work again. It will also be good to be able to demonstrate the benefits of tests, migrations, security, and other perks of using a framework.