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Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

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Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#11
post #9

Is `noob' considered acceptable terminology?

It used to be that "noob" was rude (referring to a new or incompetent person who is stupid and irritating) and "newb" was not (referring to a new person who should be treated kindly and helped along). Maybe the meanings are starting to blend together?

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#12

Neat idea! We'll be following along as we've found students do better with a bit more structure than this program provides, but there are so many ways of learning it may work well. What I like most is the personal help. It promises not just a video but guidance to the best video based on where the "noob" is located... that's awesome. I would say that "passively by dropping comments to the blog" feels like a low bar (…

> The response rates to questions must be prompt – the difference between getting an answer in 30 seconds and 10 minutes is huge for me, and I've been writing software for 15 years. It's only worse for beginners.

I think the there is a lot of learning involved when you are trying to figure out an answer. If things are answered very quickly they won't try at all and ask the person, even though the answer is very simple.

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#13
I'm very comfortable using CakePHP. I've built many apps using knockout.js on top of it, extensively used jQuery and AJAX throughout and have used both MySQL and MongoDB to drive the data.

For someone like me who is confident in their abilities of another MVC framework, how much of a learning curve is involved transitioning over to ROR (or any other MVC for that matter)? Has anyone switched from say Django, CakePHP or MVC4 over to Rails, or vice versa?

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#14
post #13

I'm very comfortable using CakePHP. I've built many apps using knockout.js on top of it, extensively used jQuery and AJAX throughout and have used both MySQL and MongoDB to drive the data. For someone like me who is confident in their abilities of another MVC framework, how much of a learning curve is involved transitioning over to ROR (or any other MVC for that matter)? Has anyone switched from say Django, CakePHP o…

I switched from Django to Cake to ROR. There isn't much difference structurally, as all of them are after all MVC architecture, but there are little subtle things which bring about the difference in feel and usability. Cake is heavily inspired from Rails but it doesn't focus much on command line as Rails does. For any common command you have which will add files, there is a command to in Rails to bring about that change and generate ALL THE RECOMMENDED files at once. These include test files, migrations, css, js, helpers etc. This makes life much much easier. Plus, ruby feels much pleasant when compared to PHP and thus, you won't regret switching to here. It'll take 2 days to be able to create a workable app. Although you'll find a new concept in Coffee script (Which is basically using ruby syntax for JavaScript), but you can easily switch back to JS if you want by removing the extension. Come over to the dark side, you'll love it.

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#15

Neat idea! We'll be following along as we've found students do better with a bit more structure than this program provides, but there are so many ways of learning it may work well. What I like most is the personal help. It promises not just a video but guidance to the best video based on where the "noob" is located... that's awesome. I would say that "passively by dropping comments to the blog" feels like a low bar (…

> The response rates to questions must be prompt – the difference between getting an answer in 30 seconds and 10 minutes is huge for me, and I've been writing software for 15 years. It's only worse for beginners. I think the there is a lot of learning involved when you are trying to figure out an answer. If things are answered very quickly they won't try at all and ask the person, even though the answer is very simpl…

I agree in the principle you're after (independence beats dependent on someone else) but not the method.

Quick response rates help people feel not alone. And that's really really important because alone is too close to helpless is too close to powerless is too close to giving up.

To develop independence you need a good teacher. That's one who helps you understand why the answer is the answer, rather than just gives you the answer. Teach a person to fish... basically.

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#16
post #14
post #13

I'm very comfortable using CakePHP. I've built many apps using knockout.js on top of it, extensively used jQuery and AJAX throughout and have used both MySQL and MongoDB to drive the data. For someone like me who is confident in their abilities of another MVC framework, how much of a learning curve is involved transitioning over to ROR (or any other MVC for that matter)? Has anyone switched from say Django, CakePHP o…

I switched from Django to Cake to ROR. There isn't much difference structurally, as all of them are after all MVC architecture, but there are little subtle things which bring about the difference in feel and usability. Cake is heavily inspired from Rails but it doesn't focus much on command line as Rails does. For any common command you have which will add files, there is a command to in Rails to bring about that cha…

I've been thinking about giving rails a chance. I'm in the middle of a project using Cake right now, so I think when I finish it I'll start checking out ROR.

> For any common command you have which will add files, there is a command to in Rails to bring about that change and generate ALL THE RECOMMENDED files at once

Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but it sounds an awful lot like Cake's bake functionality.

For you ROR guys, here's a short tutorial on baking with CakePHP.

http://www.jamesfairhurst.co.uk/posts/view/baking_with_cakep...

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#17
post #16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Django to Cake to ROR. There isn't much difference structurally, as all of them are after all MVC architecture, but there are little subtle things which bring about the difference in feel and usability. Cake is heavily inspired from Rails but it doesn't focus much on command line as Rails does. For any common command you have which will add files, there is a command to in Rails to bring about that cha…

I've been thinking about giving rails a chance. I'm in the middle of a project using Cake right now, so I think when I finish it I'll start checking out ROR. > For any common command you have which will add files, there is a command to in Rails to bring about that change and generate ALL THE RECOMMENDED files at once Maybe I'm misinterpreting this, but it sounds an awful lot like Cake's bake functionality. For you RO…

Yes, it's very close to Bake functionality, but has many more commands. For example, if I remember correctly, there are no migration files in Cake and you have to do the changes in database manually. Try the migration feature of Rails, you'll never go back again.

Re: Follow the journey of three beginners who are learning to code

#20
post #9

Is `noob' considered acceptable terminology?

It used to be that "noob" was rude (referring to a new or incompetent person who is stupid and irritating) and "newb" was not (referring to a new person who should be treated kindly and helped along). Maybe the meanings are starting to blend together?

Always sounds rude to me, which was my main complaint. At least it's not used in the vocative. But it's also a somewhat childish term, being a contraction (phonetically spelled - and with a foreign accent!) of a term that's already seemingly a diminutive thanks to the "-ie" suffix. Is this the sort of thing that adults do? How old are the people that use it? Probably under 20, I suspect. If that. And immature, to boot.

Whatever happened to the word "beginner"? (EDIT: Ha! They changed it to "beginner", and I didn't notice until I'd posted this.)

I suppose I should finish this post with, "NOW GET OFF MY LAWN".

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