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How to become successful Rubyist

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Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#21

Post by jraines »

steveklabnik wrote: post #13
jraines wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that it's important for the community as a whole. But for a junior position, isn't the key that the person can write working Ruby, can get along with the team, and has growth potential? Would you hire someone who had been a hobbyist, produced some cool, working web apps, but happened to not have written a single test for them?

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#22

Post by bphogan »

jraines wrote: post #20
bphogan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There's a couple I think. If you create an account and enter in your location details, we sort mentors geographically close to you on the map page.

http://www.railsmentors.org/mentors

When you're a guest, it's just not really sorted.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#23

Post by pstinnett »

rjett wrote: post #19
pstinnett wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep I've worked through the first couple chapters of Rails tutorial and launched my first rails app. I'd just like to learn more specifically about RSpec.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#24

Post by jamesbritt »

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.

"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."

I'd want to hear from people who tried and failed and learn what didn't work for them. Did they do the same things as the successful people? What were the differences?

What things actually make a difference, and what things are largely coincidental.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#25

Post by patio11 »

delano wrote: post #4
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,…

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 Many interesting companies prefer to hire (and in some cases hire only) people who have or have contributed to opensource projects. By all means, write OSS. Get paid to do it, though. Is it really that bad to work on opensource software solely because you want to? Do we rea…

Do we really need to get paid for everything we do?

I really think we should get paid for everything we do for for-profit companies. And if someone at a for-profit company is saying "We'll hire you, but only after you've 'paid your dues' by giving us labor for free", they do not have your best interests at heart.

Re: How to become successful Rubyist

#26

Post by steveklabnik »

jraines wrote: post #21
steveklabnik wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that it's important for the community as a whole. But for a junior position, isn't the key that the person can write working Ruby, can get along with the team, and has growth potential? Would you hire someone who had been a hobbyist, produced some cool, working web apps, but happened to not have written a single test for them?

Totally. But knowing how to test puts you at a competitive advantage; if you had two applicants and one knew how to test already, wouldn't you hire that one?
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