[LRUG] May Meeting - Specifics

[David Townsend]

Sorry Murray,

I'm really not helping you getting this organised, ignore my mumblings.


On 5/3/07, David Townsend <toonsend at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Code reviews are invaluable, particularly when it's code from an
> inexperienced practioner.  I think code reviews can turn into arguments over
> symantics when you have good coders discussing good code.
>
> As for a regular mentor to help with problems, sounds more like a help
> desk.  Sadly most problems you face day to day tend to one shot issues.  You
> need to learn the tools to be able to solve them, whether it's through your
> own debug coding, as my professors used to say to any query
>
> "Do you use print statements?"
>
> or to be able to sift google results to find the answer or when all else
> fails I hit the ROR irc channel.  If people are willing to provide this
> help, then that's fantastic, but I question it's ability to improve coding
> ability.  Just my four penneth
>
> David Townsend
>
> On 5/3/07, Suw Charman < suw.charman at gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> > On 5/3/07, Tom Stuart < tom at experthuman.com > wrote:
> > >
> > > I hope this will be taken as polite and pragmatic (which is the
> > > intention) rather than rude and inconsiderate (which isn't), but:
> > > there seem to be at least a few people who have little or no Ruby
> > > experience at all, and I'm not convinced that mentoring is a good use
> > > of either party's time in those cases.
> > >
> > > Mentoring is best applied when there's some grit in the oyster, so to
> > > speak: "I pretty much know what I'm doing, but I came up against this
> > > weird problem/situation/feeling the other day, so can you give me the
> > > benefit of your experience?"
> > >
> > > There are already plenty of really, really good Ruby-beginner
> > > resources freely available on the web, and increasingly there are
> > > some Rails ones too, although those tend to still be somewhat
> > > fragmented and cast to the four corners of the blogosphere. In many
> > > cases these tutorials are the distilled result of careful thinking
> > > and editing on the part of their authors, and are therefore likely to
> > > hit home much more rapidly and effectively than someone trying to
> > > sketch out the syntax of blocks on the back of a fag packet down the
> > > pub.
> > >
> > > Therefore would it be useful to compile a list of *recommended* Ruby/
> > > Rails-newbie resources, so that people can at least break the ice of
> > > their total unfamiliarity with the language/framework and so put
> > > themselves in the best position to actively pick the brains of their
> > > mentors?
> >
> > I agree, but I also disagree. There's got to be some grit in the
> > oyster, but it has to be the right grit in the right place! For
> > example, I've started on the Agile Development book, and yes it's
> > good, but if I get stuck (and it's not a typo issue) then I really get
> > stuck because I am too inexperienced to know where the problem may be.
> > If I'm trying to do something and there's an error because of a
> > problem with the way my environment is set up, (two people have helped
> > me set up my computer and I have no idea what either of them did!),
> > then there is no way for me to fix it.
> >
> > If I had a monthly, or maybe fortnightly, session with a mentor who
> > could look at my problem and teach me how to fix it, then that would
> > be a massive help. It would also give me the motivation to keep
> > working on the various books that I've bought but which currently
> > languish on my bookshelf.
> >
> > Having resources online and books and mailing lists is all well and
> > good, but having someone who can take one look at your error and say
> > 'Ah, right, what's wrong is...' is a much better way to go.
> >
> > If I have to wait until I 'pretty much know what I'm doing' before
> > anyone will mentor me... well, that could be several years away.
> > Having someone who's willing to help me fix my problems, talk me
> > through things I don't understand, and encourage me to keep going with
> > the books would be just invaluable. (As would working on a project
> > with someone, but that might be a little advanced for me right now.)
> >
> > Suw
> >
> >
> > --
> > -----------------------------------------------
> >
> > AIM: nefibach
> > IRC: #suwcharman on freenode
> > Timezone: GMT
> > http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/
> > http://www.corante.com/strange/
> > http://www.suw.org.uk/
> > http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
> > _______________________________________________
> > chat mailing list
> > chat at lrug.org
> > http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
> >
>
>
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