From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2008-04-27T23:58:53+09:00
Subject: Re: newbie; needs direction

Hi --

On Sun, 27 Apr 2008, Albert Schlef wrote:

> I'm a very experienced programmer, but I'm new to ruby.

Welcome! First lesson: you're not a newbie; you're a nuby! :-)

> I've studied the grammar of the language already, I found it easy, and
> I'm now looking for "good source code" that I can just read and learn
> from.
>
> I already studied ruby-dbi's source code.
>
> I considered learning AcriveRecord, but maybe I should wait a bit with
> this.
>
> My question, sort of, is: "What now?"
>
> I know it's a vague question. I'll ask it differently: "I've studied the
> grammar. OK. And I'm a good programmer, probably. What should be my next
> steps in Ruby? Should I look for a 'beautiful' package, like Rails, and
> study it?"
>
> I'm somewhat at a loss.

I want to second Tim's point about not only asking but also answering
questions. I can't tell you how much I've learned about Ruby by
answering questions, specifically questions I don't know the answer to
but feel I should and therefore dig around for. Obviously you need to
bootstrap yourself into the language before you'll be comfortable
doing that, but definitely keep an eye toward it as you go.


David

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