How to become successful Rubyist • Hacker News Board

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#11

Post by aaronblohowiak » Wed, May 26, 2010, 5:29 PM UTC

jraines wrote: post #9

patio11 wrote: post #2

So many folks suggest "If you don't have anything you can show, start by contributing to OSS work!" that I sort of have the urge to be contrarian: 1) The professional degree for software engineers is a BS. You might not be great shakes when you get out of school, but you're still a professional. You know what professional means? That when you're the least experienced person in the room doing barely serviceable work,…

Yes. Also, if I am going to put some time into OSS and I'm a beginner, I want more specific advice than "work on OSS". What's the procedure for jumping in? How many initial questions are non-annoying for the project maintainers? How do I submit a pull request? What are the projects that are near or just slightly above my skill level? Is my own project, started from scratch at my less than impressive skill level, as g…

Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#12

Post by jraines » Wed, May 26, 2010, 5:33 PM UTC

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #11

jraines wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, if I am going to put some time into OSS and I'm a beginner, I want more specific advice than "work on OSS". What's the procedure for jumping in? How many initial questions are non-annoying for the project maintainers? How do I submit a pull request? What are the projects that are near or just slightly above my skill level? Is my own project, started from scratch at my less than impressive skill level, as g…

Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.

Yeah, I was definitely being a little whiny there. I did just pick up an RSpec book -- just wish TDD experience wasn't such a pre-req for getting a Ruby job.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#13

Post by steveklabnik » Wed, May 26, 2010, 6:04 PM UTC

jraines wrote: post #12

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.

Yeah, I was definitely being a little whiny there. I did just pick up an RSpec book -- just wish TDD experience wasn't such a pre-req for getting a Ruby job.

See, I'm actually the other way, I'm really glad that testing is such a huge part of Ruby's culture. In a language that gives you so much freedom, you need something to make sure you're not doing terrible things.

Also, writing tests is a skill. After knowing how, you still can actually get better at writing tests. It's not as easy as 'just teach me RSpec,' it's more like 'teach me functional programming' or something. It's much bigger than just switching languages.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#14

Post by steveklabnik » Wed, May 26, 2010, 6:05 PM UTC

rick_2047 wrote: post #8

I have not read all the articles fully so I cannot comment on the content, but I found that the way the articles were written was interesting. I mean this guy just emailed all these questions to all these people and they just replied?

You would be shocked at how accesable people are. Just ask, and often you shall receive.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#15

Post by pstinnett » Wed, May 26, 2010, 6:45 PM UTC

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #11

jraines wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, if I am going to put some time into OSS and I'm a beginner, I want more specific advice than "work on OSS". What's the procedure for jumping in? How many initial questions are non-annoying for the project maintainers? How do I submit a pull request? What are the projects that are near or just slightly above my skill level? Is my own project, started from scratch at my less than impressive skill level, as g…

Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.

I've been working on my own to learn Ruby, and I know TDD is a big part of things. Have you used the Peepcode screencast? Would that be a good starting point on RSpec?

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#16

Post by belitsky » Wed, May 26, 2010, 7:03 PM UTC

duck wrote: post #10

It seems like he is asking the wrong people these questions since there is a lot of "I can't really answer that because I don't need to do that". I would rather know the answers to these questions from random folks on the Ruby mailing list that I haven't heard of since their experiences would probably be more fitting for me.

You right, some questions was not get useful answers, but some of them do. I asked what was interesting for me :)

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#17

Post by belitsky » Wed, May 26, 2010, 7:07 PM UTC

rick_2047 wrote: post #8

I have not read all the articles fully so I cannot comment on the content, but I found that the way the articles were written was interesting. I mean this guy just emailed all these questions to all these people and they just replied?

Yes, i write down some questions, which was interesting and useful for me on that time, and send about 70 emails. You can read all comments i got, only one guy write that he can't publish any interviews cause his contract. Some of guys write me that they will answer later, but i think they forgot about this. Anyway, i'm happy that i was able to get answers from those "cool guys" ;)

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#18

Post by bphogan » Wed, May 26, 2010, 7:36 PM UTC

jraines wrote: post #9

patio11 wrote: post #2

So many folks suggest "If you don't have anything you can show, start by contributing to OSS work!" that I sort of have the urge to be contrarian: 1) The professional degree for software engineers is a BS. You might not be great shakes when you get out of school, but you're still a professional. You know what professional means? That when you're the least experienced person in the room doing barely serviceable work,…

Yes. Also, if I am going to put some time into OSS and I'm a beginner, I want more specific advice than "work on OSS". What's the procedure for jumping in? How many initial questions are non-annoying for the project maintainers? How do I submit a pull request? What are the projects that are near or just slightly above my skill level? Is my own project, started from scratch at my less than impressive skill level, as g…

RailsMentors.org will help. This is one of my pet projects for RailsBridge, and we have a ton of volunteers.

Hell, ask me any time and I will teach you to write tests if you want.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#19

Post by rjett » Wed, May 26, 2010, 9:01 PM UTC

pstinnett wrote: post #15

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.

I've been working on my own to learn Ruby, and I know TDD is a big part of things. Have you used the Peepcode screencast? Would that be a good starting point on RSpec?

railstutorial.org is a great place to learn the Rails/Rspec/github/heroku way of development and deployment.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#20

Post by jraines » Wed, May 26, 2010, 9:37 PM UTC

bphogan wrote: post #18

jraines wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, if I am going to put some time into OSS and I'm a beginner, I want more specific advice than "work on OSS". What's the procedure for jumping in? How many initial questions are non-annoying for the project maintainers? How do I submit a pull request? What are the projects that are near or just slightly above my skill level? Is my own project, started from scratch at my less than impressive skill level, as g…

RailsMentors.org will help. This is one of my pet projects for RailsBridge, and we have a ton of volunteers. Hell, ask me any time and I will teach you to write tests if you want.

My email is in my profile -- send me a note!

Got any mentors in the LA area?