Pragmatic Rails Studio Day 1
February 16th, 2006
You can read about day 2 and day 3 after finishing up day 1 below.
I’m currently attending the Pragmatic Programmers Ruby on Rails studio in Chicago. I’m familiar with Rails, but I’ve been taking shortcuts and I know it. My hope for the conference is to fill in the holes (*ahem* testing), learn best practices, pick up a few new things and meet some other geeks. The first day went great, other than the fact that I had two cups of coffee before noon and I spent the whole day in Ruby. Coffee makes me really hyper as I do not dabble much in caffeine. Ruby also makes me really hyper. The combination of both in large amounts made me pretty much sick to my stomach for the majority of the day (but in a good way I guess).
Introductions
The first day started off with introductions. Introductions first to Dave Thomas and Mike Clark (the speakers) and then to Ruby. Dave impressed me with his mastery of Ruby. Nearly any question that was thrown his way, he answered with an obvious knowledge of the inner workings of the language. Mike is great. Mike is right up my ally. He is extremely excited about Rails. He even stated that he sleeps really bad the day before a studio because he is so ramped up that he gets to teach it to more people. I enjoyed the coverage of Ruby before Rails because most people experience Rails first and never fully appreciate the power of Ruby. I have heard of people who never even examine Ruby in detail because they can “get things done” without knowing it.
They talked a bit about ‘meta programming,’ which I found particularly interesting (it’s extending the language in the language itself). I’ve read through Programming Ruby which really helped during the Ruby part of Day 1. I was able to focus on learning concepts instead of syntax. In fact, for the first time I actually understand mixins and modules (which are fricken sweet). I also gained clarity on class methods vs. instance methods. The Ruby presentation was great and I am really glad that Mike and Dave covered it (who better to teach you than the one who literally wrote the book on it).
Rails
The second half of the day covered more items specific to Rails. A plethora of basic topics were covered such as philosophy, migration, scaffolding, rake, validation, controllers and views. This part was less interesting for me as I have already went through this, but a few holes were filled and I know it was good for the majority of the people. I bet only a quarter of the people in the studio have actually spent any serious time on Rails (which is what I expected).
Most Interesting
I feel as though I learned two things more important than the intricacies of Ruby and the ease of Rails. The first is a glimpse into web designer vs. web programmer. I am a jack of all trades. I have a little experience with design, a good amount of experience with development (CSS, XHTML) and a good amount of experience programming (PHP, ColdFusion, Ruby, etc). It’s a trade off. Either you can become an expert in one or you can, as I see it, remain flexible and adaptive in all. Both sides have advantages. Granted, I have not spoken with all present but it seems as though the majority of the attendees are programmers and only programmers. Dave and Mike made several jokes about their lack of knowledge pertaining to HTML and CSS. Some attendees asked basic HTML questions and others mentioned advanced programming words that I have only heard about. I definitely feel like a middle man but I like being in that position. I enjoy being able to relate to everyone and help both sides see the other’s.
The second thing that struck me was the Java influence in the audience. Nearly half of the people raised their hands as having experience in Java. Often while explaining something in Ruby, Mike or Dave would compare it with Java. I have heard about the pervasiveness of Java, but never come in contact with it in such great force. All in all it was an extremely inspiring day (despite only basics being covered) and I look forward to tomorrow.
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Sounds like alot of fun!! Too bad you are here during the dang COLD! … was nicer a few weeks ago..
Thanks for the notes. I am glad to hear that the conference is going well. I too, am always surprised by people that are “one or the other”. I have always been the Jack of all Trades (and unfortunately master of none), but it seems that the majority of geeks out there are definitely wired one way, and one way only.
Looking forward to more feedback on the course.
@Nola - I am from South Bend so I get pretty much the same temp range.
@Jaime - It’s worth going to the conference simply to experience the other side. On top of that though, it’s nice to meet several other people as excited about this stuff as I am.
The conference sounds pretty fun. I’m in the same boat being a Jake of all Trades.
I’ve played with Rails a little and have also started playing with Django. So far I like Django better from the stand point that it uses Python and I like Python’s syntax a lot better than Ruby’s.
I would be interesed to know if you have played with Django that much and if so why you went the other way and chose Rails / Ruby to work with.
@Brent - I have looked a bit at python. I think ruby just seems more human like. It feels like you are talking, not programming and I like that. I feel that Rails is far more mature as of now. It has like a year on Django. Also, I watched the entire Snakes and Rubies movie. That was pretty interesting if you want to compare the two.
Hey John. Good description of the day. I have to agree with you about being in the middle. Currently I do ASP.NET development, have done classic ASP and PHP, but I really enjoy XHTML and CSS and a little design. What draws me to RoR is that you’re not required to get deep into the programming to build good apps with cool features. You can if you want and Ruby actually makes me want to, but it isn’t necessary.
It was good meeting you. See you at RailsConf??
@Clint - It was nice meeting you too. I wish I was heading to RailsConf, but unfortunately I’m not. I will be following closely online though.
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