Starting my first gem was quite a challenge for me. With endless topics to choose from, I was at a loss as to where to start from. I decided to work on a weather program, which will give the user the current weather conditions upon request.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I should start the program from a user’s perspective, which would mean that I’m working my way from outside into the program. Or would it be a better choice to work from inside towards the outside? As I set about from inside-out, I hit my first obstacle. Being already familiar with how to scrape a website given that all content can be found on a single webpage. However, in this case my results would vary based on any given U.S. zip code, which I could not find on a single webpage. I had to figure out how to achieve my goal.
Analyzing how the website “weather.com” works, I realized that on the homepage, upon using the search bar for a specific zip code, the resulting webpage displays the given zip code on its url.
Now, by replacing only the zip code part of the url with any other given zip code, I will get valid results! Which means, that on my gem project, I’m able to use the current url by hard-coding it up-to the point where the zip code is displayed, then append user’s input (zip code). Score, I reached a milestone!!