Richard Conroy
4/12/2007 3:59:00 PM
On 4/12/07, celldee <celldee@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am in the process of retraining myself in Ruby. I have books, a Mac
> (with Textmate), Linux and Windows boxes, read online articles and
> invent little coding exercises for myself. None of that is a
> substitute for real world experience.
Like someone else mentioned - do the Ruby Quiz. It seems to be
The Way of Enlightenment.
Also check your books. Depending on your level of experience with
tech/programming in general, the book recommendations change.
I really like Brian Marick's 'Everyday Scripting with Ruby'. Chris Pine's
'Learn to Program' is good, but more for the novice. ESwR is very practically
focused for instance which I like (your first code example for instance
uses Files). Then everyone varies on their 'sagely' book: Pickaxe is the
lingua franca, but people tend to gravitate towards Bruce Tate's 'The
Ruby Way' or David Black's 'Ruby for Rails' for their more in depth advice.
YMMV - but I like being dumped into the trenches of practical stuff.
Theres also Rails, but to be pedantic, you are not strictly learning Ruby
there (you can accomplish great things in Rails without Ruby knowledge,
which is pretty impressive in itself) which will give you a lot of confidence
and visible results. Do Google Maps Mashups or Twitter mashups (get
some cheap hosting). But maybe core Ruby stuff is probably better
for pure learnign.
> Is there anybody who would be willing to engage me in a sort of
> internship whereby you give me a smallish Ruby project to do and I
> complete it purely for the experience?
> I'm physically located in the UK, but the 'Net has a long reach. ;-)
> Please contact me off list if you can help.
Theres UK/London/elsewhere Ruby Users Groups. Find a mailing list
and join, you might find locally placed people.
> Sorry, if this is not the correct forum for this sort of thing.
It is. We all participate in the big Ruby love-in, more converts and
awareness, increases the likelihood that I can get paid to program
in Ruby in the future.