Module 3 Intermission Work

Required

You must complete and submit all of these assignments. It is due the Saturday before the start of the inning at 5pm

Submit your work here: Survey Link

You must use Ruby 3.1.x and Rails 7.0.x for all of the work in this module. You can check your version by running ruby -v and rails -v in your terminal.

Note: If you are installing Ruby 3.1.x for the first time, you WILL have to reinstall all of your gems. Gems reside on your computer per version of Ruby, and every time you add a new version of Ruby, you will have to reinstall all of your gems for that version of ruby.

Core Learning Goals of Mod 3

API Development / Consumption
Authentication / Authorization systems
Managing deeply-nested data collections
Refactoring code into new Design Patterns

Intro to APIs

Everything we build in Mod 3 will focus on the theme of building and consuming APIs.

Here are some helpful videos and tutorials that you can use to familiarize yourself with both building and consuming APIs. The videos are using Rails 5, but the concepts are the same. The build an API in Rails Tutorial has been updated to use Rails 7.

Watch one

Do all of these

Stuff to Read and internalize

Sandi Metz’ Rules for Developers

Authentication / Authorization

Write up some notes and ideas on the following:

you need to store a user in a database table; what do we need to know about them (ie, email, password)
how can we store a password in a secure way (ie, if our database is compromised, how can we protect their passwords from prying eyes)
how would we store the idea of what a user is allowed to do on a web site
how would we build a safe login page
how could we tell if a user is logged in since HTTP is “stateless”
how could we allow a user to “stay logged in for 7 days” even if your Rails app is restarted

Deeply Nested Collections

When consuming APIs, the data is often returned in deeply nested collections, so you will need to tap into your Mod 1 skills to practice digging through them to retrieve the data you need.

Fork and clone Here Be Dragons. Get the tests to pass. This is something you’ll turn in with your submission, so make sure you make a forked copy of it.

HTTP Request/Response

On one piece of paper, write out all of the parts of an example HTTP GET request (Diagram the DNS look-up as well as how a Rails Application would handle the request via MVC)
On a separate piece of paper, write out an example 200 response to that request with all of the parts
Bonus write your explanation as a metaphor

Rails “params” magic.

How does “params” get built in Rails, and what precidence is given for query parameters (ie ?id=5 in a URL) versus dynamic placeholders (ie /book/:id) versus data sent in the body of a request from a form.

Start writing up some notes based on the Rails documentation:

Rails Docs - Parameters

SQL/ActiveRecord

Entering Module 3 with a solid understanding of ActiveRecord and SQL is key to getting the module off to a good start. Make sure you are able to write and understand queries that involve multiple JOIN statements and that combine math functions.

Complete and understand the Intermediate SQL I challenges.
Complete and understand the Intermediate SQL II challenges.

Reading

For further exploration

If you have time, here are some activities that will be valuable not only in Mod 3, but in Mod 4 and the job hunt as well.

Data Structures And Algorithms

We are going to be covering various data structures to prepare you for the job hunt and technical interviews. Complete this former M1 project, Beat Box

If you’ve done Beat Box, let’s get serious and have a Date Night

Optional Reading on Security topics

Rails Security