Straw Dogs

‘Newbies’ First 2 Months

Posted by admin on October 12th, 2007 filed in rails, ruby

I so wanted to avoid using that horrendous 'N' word in any part of my blog but I needed something short for the title.

Anyway - TAW made an interesting post on his first 2 months on Rails and I sympathise with many of his points but for a different reason. Most of the issues he raises aren't really a problem when you know the Ruby/Rails way of doing it. Which sounds incredibly dismissive so I apologise but it is the way learning any language. Most difficulties are often more to do with trying to program in your 'native' Java, Python, PHP using Ruby - it just doesn't work. Once you get to know Ruby and Rails more and more it eventually becomes clear that Ruby has its own way of doing things - this often means many disheartening setbacks when you realise your amazing whizz-bang class that cooks your dinner can be done in a single line of clever Ruby as opposed to the mountainous 30 line monster you built over a few days.

It'd be worth having a book, blog, website dedicated to just one thing: Showing the Rails/Ruby way of doing common tasks. To save these stumbling blocks for people new too the language and framework. Any volunteers?