I think it depends on programming experience. When I learned Ruby my previous programming experience was in PHP, I found it harder to learn Ruby with all the powerful and elegant concepts it provides. As I became proficient in Ruby and a more experienced programmer in general, I started to think about programming in more abstract terms and not merely how to implement something in X.<div>
<br></div><div>Learning iOS for example I have found actually pretty easy, despite initially being put off by the syntax and relative verbosity. It's reasonably doable in a month, i.e. to be productive to the point where you can charge other people money in good conscience. This does not apply if you do not know write software already and of course you're not going to know all of CoreFoundation or UIKit in a month, but there are great docs and Xcode has method auto-completion, which helps :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>S<br><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Andrew Premdas <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:apremdas@gmail.com">apremdas@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On 21 March 2012 23:41, Jon Wood <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jon@blankpad.net" target="_blank">jon@blankpad.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px">We're following what you've called "the Eden way" at Hubbub. Anyone half competent can learn a new language and its accompanying frameworks given a month or so to get up to speed, but someone without the mindset and passion for building software is never going to be a great developer.<br>
</div><div><div>
<p style="color:#a0a0a8"></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Whilst I agree that mindset and passion are key things for being a good developer, the idea that you can learn a new language and its frameworks in a month seems pretty arrogant. Perhaps I have a different definition of learning or getting upto speed, but I find it a little disturbing that someone can think they can learn ruby in a month and know it. The same thing applies with technologies my particular beef is people thinking they know how to do TDD or BDD after a month. </div>
<div><br></div><div>This doesn't just apply to 'rockstar' devs who implicitly understand nosql in a week. This attitude is pervasive in our industry where skills are constantly overstated and at the same time belittled and not appreciated. Sure you can get a sketch of ruby in a month, and you can speed read War and Peace in 20 minutes but if you think you in any way done or even competent with either then your deluded.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Andrew</div><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><p style="color:#a0a0a8">On Thursday, 22 March 2012 at 06:47, Anthony Green wrote:</p>
<blockquote type="cite"><div>
<span><div><div><div><br></div><div>I'm continually disappointed by the quality of the recruitment </div><div>offerings. All of which pretty much reduce the posting "to we want a </div><div>code monkey of type Foo with skills x, y and z"</div>
<div><br></div><div>I always admired Eden and Chris Parson's holistic belief when taking on </div><div>staff. For BBC Future Media, the security of our income model means </div><div>there's occasionally room for individuals who share those same values to </div>
<div>try and emulate Chris' approach.</div><div><br></div><div>Is it economic uncertainty that means companies don't follow the Eden </div><div>way or just a lack of maturity in our industry?</div><div><br></div>
<div>
-- </div><div><br></div><div>Anthony Green</div><div>Media Playout</div><div>BBC Future Media</div><div><br></div><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>Chat mailing list</div><div><a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org" target="_blank">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a></div>
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<br></blockquote></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>------------------------</div>Andrew Premdas<div><a href="http://blog.andrew.premdas.org" target="_blank">blog.andrew.premdas.org</a></div>
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