From: Bill Guindon <agorilla@...>
Date: 2005-03-26T13:20:32+09:00
Subject: Re: comment on today's poll and more questions

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:54:49 +0900, Phil Tomson <ptkwt@aracnet.com> wrote:
> 
> It's interesting to see all of the 'a' answers to the first question of
> the poll today (meaning that they are using Ruby all the time in their
> work).  This seems to be a marked change in the Ruby community since a
> year ago when the 'a' answer would have been much rarer.
> 
> Can some of the folks who use Ruby 'all the time' at work offer advice on
> how to find Ruby work/contracts?  I suspect 'Learn Rails' would top the
> list - but what about other areas besides web programming - is Ruby making
> more inroads in those areas as well?
> 
> How about those of us who have not done any web programming in the past,
> but know Ruby - do we have an edge for the web programming (Rails) jobs
> as well, or is it better to have done web programming and no Ruby than
> the other way around?  Just curious.  I'm considering learning SQL and
> Rails and trying to get into web programming field so I can get paid to
> do Ruby programming again, but I've never done any web programming
> before (one of the last holdouts, I guess).

At first it seems a tricky question, but then the answer seems
somewhat obvious.  If you're going to do Ruby on the Web, it pays to
have experience with one, the other, or both.  You certainly have the
edge over those who have neither :)

Having done tons of web apps (since 1996~), but little Ruby, I'd say
your odds are about as good as mine.  Of course, I'm the exception as
little of my web programming was object oriented.  Competition between
you and a Java web programmer may give the edge to the Java
programmer.  Even then, I doubt it's much of an edge (ie: knowledge of
the community and existing libraries offsets much of that).

Web programming is certainly a different mindset, but getting the
basics of it ("screens", hiding variables for continuity, etc.)
probably only takes a weekend or so.  Of course, that assumes you know
HTML.  Mastering all of the details, as with anything, can take a
lifetime.

-- 
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)