Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners • Hacker News Board

Re: Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners

#41

Post by Czarnian » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 10:56 PM UTC

Rails is not for beginning web developers.

As an educated CS professional with a reasonable amount of experience in non-web development fields (database design and embedded systems), the roadblocks I hit always had to do with understanding web development concepts.

I also got frustrated finding meaningful help on some of these subjects. I found it next to impossible to find straightforward explanations of things like routing. The help always seemed to consist of either advanced material that assumed the viewer knew about routing or "Suck it, noob." type responses like the OP talks about.

Re: Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners

#42

Post by forkhammer » Wed, Feb 15, 2012, 3:20 PM UTC

blindhippo wrote: post #31

ahmadss wrote: post #5

As a n00b trying to learn how to program, I completely agree with your points about Ruby on Rails. After getting in over my head going through a few rails tutorials, I took a step back and realized that while I could create really basic web apps and go through the keystrokes to write code and commit to Git, I didn't understand what the hell I was doing from a conceptual level. It was rote code copying from a tutorial…

I personally think software "engineering" should be considered a craft/trade. We should be apprenticed and developed under the direction of masters. You can learn this discipline on your own, but you'll always be second rate to a developer who learned under tutelage from someone else. Whether it's in school or in the workplace, learning from others is incredibly valuable.

I support this wholeheartedly. A good mentor is absolutely critical.

Re: Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners

#43

Post by forkhammer » Wed, Feb 15, 2012, 3:25 PM UTC

Hominem wrote: post #18

•He uses Windows, or if he uses Mac or Linux, it’s without any working understanding of how the system works. Aww. I know he isn't really knocking windows users. But using windows doesn't limit your ability to learn how to program.

Definitely not, and I cut my teeth with Ruby on Windows, way back when. You can learn on Windows, but it is so much easier on a *NIX machine. As I said in the supplemental article that I wrote to go with this piece:

> [If you choose to use Windows,] you need to understand that Rails—and indeed, most modern, cutting-edge programming stuff—is not meant for you. Accuse me of elitism, sure, but it’s a simple fact of the matter that many, if not most big-name programmers program on one of these two platforms (or some more extreme variant). You can program and do Rails on Windows, but you are swimming against the current. You are going to fight battles learning to program, so ask yourself: is using this operating system the battle you wish to fight? The correct answer is no, but you might have your reasons. Nevertheless, you can download and install a copy of Linux so amazingly easy these days that you’re making it hard if you choose not to.

Re: Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners

#44

Post by forkhammer » Wed, Feb 15, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

nanijoe wrote: post #21

I can't speak for any one else, but I'm sure glad I decided to learn rails about 4 years ago...It forced me to take several detours and learn things like ruby, css, html some linux admin etc I would heartily recommend rails to all beginners

For what it's worth, I feel the same way: learning Rails has sent me down a lot of roads and inspired me to learn a lot of new, interesting, valuable things. I knew Ruby before I started... but even just the conceptual elegance of Rails has taught me something.

Re: Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners

#45

Post by forkhammer » Wed, Feb 15, 2012, 3:33 PM UTC

gisikw wrote: post #24

Enterprise Rails applications aren't for beginners. But this pervasive attitude that all of Rails is beyond beginners is an abdication of responsibility. If a newbie still can't build a Rails blog in ten minutes, let's address that. "Rails is not for beginners" is shorthand for "I can't be bothered to support beginners"

I don't think that all of Rails is beyond beginners; and certainly, some people do manage to learn the prereqs while they learn Rails. But I'm advocating being blunt and telling people to learn the prerequisites, instead of mindlessly answering inane questions. People who try to bullshit program their way through an app aren't learning anything but how to copy and paste.