Welcome!
This repository contains directories with exercises to attempt to broaden yoru knowledge of ActiveRecord. Each directory contains a README with an abstract description of the problem. Where possible, the directory will contain a template test script that exercises your code.
At the moment, these exercises are focussed on associations and model structure, rather than querying, validations, or any of the other parts of ActiveRecord. The reason for this is that understanding how models work and how they relate to one another covers off a lot of what a developer new to ActiveRecord needs to get started. It also focusses on data and database modelling, which is a useful skill to develop regardless of which language or framework is being used.
You'll need a Ruby environment. I recommend the latest stable version of Ruby, which at
the time of writing is 2.5.1. You'll also need the Ruby on Rails gem installed.
With Ruby installed, this is a simple gem install rails away.
We don't provide a complete Rails app to start with for each exercise, since getting
all the way from a fresh Rails app to a complete exercise is a useful learning opportunity in
itself. If you're looking for a quick start, rails new activerecord-exercise-blah will
get you started quickly enough. You won't need any asset pipeline stuff, so feel free to
skip that if you'd like.
StackOverflow is great for some of these problems, others need a bit of thinking. If you're stuck, I encourage you to try sketching or whiteboarding out the data structure you have in mind to prototype it before you get stuck into code.
If you're starting out at a company, you may want to pair with a more experienced developer if you're stuck. There may also be some reference code you can use for inspiration available!
Each task specifies acceptance criteria. You can use these to decide if you have satisfied the requirements. Some exercises also include automated tests.
The automated tests are written to demonstrate the core acceptance criteria, without
extensions. When you generate anew Rails application, you will see a test directory. Simply drop the exercise_test.rb file inside that directory and run rake test to see if the tests pass. Rails may prompt you to set up your database before the tests can be run.
Here is an example of commands used to run the tests for the first exercise:
cd blog_postsrails new blog --database=sqlite3 --skip-sprocketscp exercise_test.rb blog/test/cd blograils db:create:all db:migrate test
If you follow these steps, you'll get failing tests - that's good! You can now add your own code to get the tests passing.
Sure! Check out LICENSE for details on any and all conditions attached to usage.
If you think up more exercises, pull requests are welcome!
See CONTRIBUTORS.md