Anybody else feeling lost in the "Build a simple Todo List app with Rails 4" course?

I agree Sergio. The title of the course is misleading for beginners and its should be rename testing with RSpec

Its a very poor structured course if you were following the Rails path. It jump from basic rails basic console commands to testing without filling the gap with the basic structure and flow of a rails app.

My advice: keep pushing! What they're trying to teach you is called Test Driven Development (or TDD), where you write the tests first, then write the code to make the tests pass. It's a big part of the "Rails way", and you'll keep seeing it come up in further Rails courses.

My takeaway from the Todo List app course was that it's meant as a high-level overview of Rails. There are so many new concepts that are Rails-specific (not Ruby) that it'll take several courses to go over everything in greater detail. You'll start having "Aha!" moments in later courses when he explains a concept that you're just typing now -- and then it'll stick with you!

I know this is a bit late, but I have a solid understanding of rails and this title of the course is simply misleading. If they didn't use scaffold to essentially build out the entire application for you "Rails Magic" then it would have been building a todo list, because you'd have to config routes, write controllers, views, and models yourself. This course is a great introduction to TDD using RSPEC and should be renamed to reflect this.

I'm in the EXACT boat as you Pavel. I'm just writing things...and I have a good understanding of model view controllers. I also like to make flash cards as I learn so I don't forget old stuff. The problem is I only like to make a flash card if I feel like I really understand it enough to make an explanation for my future self to circle back with. I've made probably 1 or 2 cards with this course. I kind of get what's happening but really am just struggling to keep up with him, constantly pausing. I have no idea what stuff is Rspec, what's capybara, whats rails, etc.

I'm not saying it's a bad course but a HORRIBLE intro to rails.

Hey Sergio,

I agree with you on this one. The learning curve suddenly shoots up and it is very easy to get lost and not understand much of what is going about. Here is my experience so far-

I had started the Rails course almost a month back and dived in head first for about a week. Much like you, I felt lost and not understanding what I was doing. So I decided to continue along with the Front End Development Course which I was finding a breeze, since I am studying IT in my college here. As I progressed through the front-end course, I was also looking up through and through for which web technology I should do my front end in. Content is king in web, so I was also interested in how do I pull information from a db.

This rails course has shown me how to do that in about only 20 lessons till now. It's pretty amazing though, how the architecture of MVC framework wasn't given enough importance to be a short video. It underlines whatever we are doing here.

As far as Rspeccing goes, try thinking about this too - You're not only learning how to make your app, but you're also learning how to make sure it's working! So you won't have to worry about people complaining about bugs once you've deployed them.

It's just a steep learning curve. I'm maintaining a copy this time, writing commands down in them as if i were in a class . Also try giving your own variable names in the programs and generic names in your copy(if you maintain one). Would love to help!

Yeah this whole TDD is pretty annoying. I understand why we need tests but it feels like TDD course rather than learning Rails. Another course on building a Treebook was so much better and engaging, this course is like watching the paint dry. IMHO, it's much better to teach about technology and then jump into TDD and other techniques of development.

I am experiencing similar pain with this. Having to pause the video and rewind to catch what Jason is doing. I will continue to power through for now. I know I will end up taking this course again at a later date when I have more experience under my belt. The more I use Rails the more I'm sure I will start to understand it. Thanks for the suggestion SERGIO RODRIGUEZ, I will check out 'Learn Rails' book by Daniel Kehoe.

I started with lot of excitement to learn ruby ,but with this todo_list part ,i am not understanding anything will it get easier if i continue this part or tell me how should i proceed to learn ruby ... I am just a begineer!!!

I'm lost on it sure. A little disappointed that I'm not doing the fun part yet and I'm half way through it... sure. Frustrated that I'm not learning how to build Rails apps like "I" think I'm supposed too also. BUT, I don't know Rails so the way "I" think to learn is probably not the best way...LOL.

I've been coding websites untrained for a long time. I'm always the person asking questions at the forums. Right now I'm SLOWLY trying to transition from the one asking questions to the one answering them. The best way I know to do that is Googling anything I have questions on FIRST (even if I technically shouldn't have too), asking questions only when I NEED too, and re-watching videos until I have an understanding of what's going on.

I'm halfway through the course and a lot of this stuff hasn't made sense. I felt like a person just typing whatever Jason is. But I've started to notice the repetitiveness of some of the commands, coding etc so started going back and Googling little things or looking through all the current videos forum topics (since a lot of people have already asked the same things). I've also re-googled the Gems being used etc. So now some of these things are slowly making sense as to what he is at least doing and I am now learning. I'm going to continue on with the course "typing it" then go back through all the videos at the end just "watching" them. I find that typing/pausing really distracts the learning process (though necessary) so if I do two quick runs of these Treehouse courses... one with typing and one without... I get a lot more out of it. When watching them again I'll also be sure to Google any last things I didn't understand.

After this track I will re-visit this thread I came across where Jason's answer mentions the rest of the plans for the App and do those videos which may have more interesting parts. I'm not sure why they weren't included in the track but hopefully most of them are complete and waiting for me :)

https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/ror-courses-sequence-seems-to-be-incoherent

well I feel lost too in building this app

it's very advanced for me

Jason Seifer can you please recommend to us what we need to fully understand this application.. as everyone else I started with Ruby development track and I know some Ruby basics. Or should we start with another app to follow up with this course.

Thank God I am not the only person who isn't very impressed with this course. I normally have nothing but praise for Treehouse courses but this one is the first that I am not happy with. I finally reached the halfway mark and decided to sit back and watch rather than try to keep up with the teacher. I seriously don't see how this track is intended to be instructional. It's more like, "hey, watch me make a Rails app!" I'm very happy with the rest of the Rails Development track but this course needs to be replaced with something that's actually designed for those of us who are learning all of this material for the first time.

I'm not a newbie to rails or programming but this course is very frustrating to me as well. I wrote a small rails app in the Rails 2.0 days so I'm a little familiar with things. I haven't touched it since and Rails 4 has brought a ton of changes so taking a beginners path is proper for me. With that being said, learning new techniques in rails and the introduction of TDD is challenging. Emili CArbon is right: this should be a rspec course. Jason Seifer gets some errors that seem unexpected at times that make him have to hack things a bit to make the test pass. How about we just code the app and explain things as we go? Another problem I have is regarding the baby steps that we're taking to move through the application and manually creating all of these views, additional methods, and controllers. Granted, these are fundamental actions that you'll take when developing a rails application but the whole process is very disjoined and unstructured. I like Jason as an instructor but the course could use a refresh with more structure and instructions.