From: SonOfLilit <sonoflilit@...>
Date: 2007-02-19T20:38:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Adopt-a-newbie? Based on actual experience.

On 2/19/07, Mark Woodward <markonlinux@internode.on.net> wrote:
> I've often thought about this but in a slightly different way.
>
> As a newbie I think this is a great idea and I'd certainly be interested
> in being mentored, but I'll throw my ideas in here anyway. I guess my
> ideas are not for newbies on the first rung of the ladder, but a rung or 2
> higher.
>
> 1. Last year at Uni I was part of a 4 student team given the task of
> creating a project for a 'customer'. It was web based and used PHP and
> none of us had any real experience with PHP. But by the end of the year
> we'd learnt a lot. So, couldn't 4-5 newbies here start an open source
> project using Ruby? Perhaps with a Mentor overlooking the project? This
> would not only develop Ruby skills but requirements, teamwork, project
> management etc. I've thought about joining a 'real' Ruby project but would
> feel like a preschooler going to University. This way we'd all be
> preschoolers under the guidance of the Mentor.
>
> 2. Have some (progressively harder) newbie quizzes on RubyQuiz. ie have a
> series of quizzes that brings the (semi) newbie up to the level of the
> quizzes that are there now.
>
> 3. I remember a while ago, although I can't remember the site, someone was
> organising a series of 'on-line lectures' from the 'Rute User's Tutorial
> and Exposition'. Something along the lines of:
> "In 3 weeks time we're going to start studying each chapter over the
> course of a week. During the first week we'll study 'Computing Sub-basics'
> the second week 'Basic Commands', wk7 'Shell Scripting' etc
> Again, could a small group of newbies under the watchful eye of a Mentor
> do a similar thing with the 'Pickaxe' for eg?
>
>
> cheers,
>
>
> --
> Mark


Hello.

I agree totally - this is my favorite way of learning/teaching.

Unfortunately, in my experience, such groups are very hard to keep together.

If a group like this would be formed, I'd enjoy helping it very much,
and I'm pretty sure I can get someone who's more of an expert to take
up the project.



In the meantime - each to his own. But one of the mentors, for
example, set a ML for his to students. That's a step in the way there.

Aur