Ruby School

Next Meeting - Wednesday, March 7th, 2007, 7:00-9:00pm
Location - Panera Bread, Irvine
Study Topic - Chapters 9-11 from “Programming Ruby” (PickAxe)
Chapter 9 - Modules
Chapter 10 - Basic Input/Output
Chapter 11 - Threads and Processes

Past Meetings

About Ruby School

What is Ruby School? Well, if you’re new to Rails, and get into AWDWR you get all excited, build the Depot application, but then if you’re not familiar with the Ruby language and want to do more the syntax can look pretty strange and bizarre. “Where are my semicolons and braces?” While Ruby is powerful, it’s power often seems obscured by it’s unfamiliar shorthand. Ruby school is about helping you learn Ruby to the core.

Learning as a group is a great way to learn together, reminds me of when I was in grad school. When I started the OC patterns study group back in 2001 we adopted a few rules over time:

  1. If you’re new, join in and hang out, sponge, nobody will think the lesser of you
  2. If you’re serious about learning, read the assigned chapters ahead of time and come prepared to discuss and contribute to the discussion
  3. A moderator is assigned to keep the discussion on topic and to pace the discussion to make sure we cover all of the material we want to within the allotted time (2 hours, 7-9pm)
  4. You must RSVP if you plan to attend. If we didn’t get at least 3 RSVPs 24hrs before the meeting then the meeting was canceled. A study group requires a group.
  5. Admission is always free

I would like to re-initiate our weekly meetings to be designated as “Ruby School”. Now I like the Panera location because of its location and it has free wi-fi. For a study group we don’t necessarily need internet access, just a quiet place to meet and discuss. We could even get a local library meeting room, or a hotel lobby, whatever. Plus, Panera can get really crowded sometimes and seating can get tight, perhaps noisy. I know the lobby at the Courtyard Marriott on Main and Jamboree in Irvine is pretty big and has lots of chairs, we could gather in one of their corners and chat away. The lobby has wi-fi, probably only available to people staying the night.

I’d like to know if anybody is interested in joining. I’d recommend everybody get the PickAxe book and come prepared to discuss and go through and discuss the first couple of chapters. In case you don’t know the PickAxe book is this one.

Programming Ruby

While we are going to be using the 2nd edition of the book, the first edition is online for free at http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ if you’re really strapped for cash.

It’d be good to have a laptop with you so we can maybe hack some code together too, do some fun stuff in irb, etc.

Once we trudge through PickAxe we can go through other books, maybe work through some Ruby Quizzes together, critique Rails Recipes, discuss some interesting article/blog post someone has discovered, etc. The point is that we’re creating a learning environment where pros and beginners can both benefit.

- Scott