<div dir="ltr">Hey Tom, <br><br>Glad to hear you're looking to switch to being a software engineer. I recently made the switch myself (I start my first day tomorrow!). I started much like yourself by using whatever resources were available online and I also looked a facilitating that with some good books while working full-time. It's absolutely doable! <br><br>Personally, I can vouch for <a href="https://teamtreehouse.com/">https://teamtreehouse.com/</a>. It's not free but it's not expensive and I really enjoyed the courses they have prepared. Choosing a course for Ruby on Rails doesn't just have you learning RoR but it also introduces you to databases, command line, html, css, etc. They've got quite a few options on there so maybe give that a look. <br><br>The books I've used are Agile Web Development with Rails 4 and The Well Grounded Rubyist. Agile Web Dev is a much more hands on book while Well Grounded feels a bit more theoretical in its approach. <br><br>To continue learning I'm currently doing the exercises on <a href="http://exercism.io">exercism.io</a> and those are great. Definitely challenging with the opportunity to make the tests harder by enabling more tests in the test suite. <br><br>In terms of the "best place to find a job", to me, that seems to be your local ruby meet-up. My job offer came from doing a presentation at NWRUG in Manchester on the same night that someone was looking to hire a junior. I would definitely encourage you to visit your local Ruby meet-up if you have one as it's an easy way to meet new people in the industry. <div><br></div><div>Cheers,<br>Brandon</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 6:21 PM, Jimmy MG Lim <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mirageglobe@gmail.com" target="_blank">mirageglobe@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 dir="ltr">Hi Tom,<div><br></div><div>Practise makes perfect. I also recommend <a href="http://poignant.guide/" target="_blank">http://poignant.guide/</a> as a guide for general ruby. Although bit of an overkill but selecting a front end like angular / react (js) will also go a long way towards full-stack.</div><div><br></div><div>orz</div><div><br></div><div>Jimmy</div><div><br></div></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 at 15:14 Riccardo Tacconi <<a href="mailto:rtacconi@gmail.com" target="_blank">rtacconi@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi,<div><br></div><div>While developing in Ruby, you will use the terminal a lot, so using a unix terminal (bash or zsh) is useful, this is a simple but good course <a href="http://cli.learncodethehardway.org/book/" target="_blank">http://cli.learncodethehardway.org/book/</a>. I would lear Ruby from here: <a href="http://learnrubythehardway.org/" target="_blank">http://learnrubythehardway.org/</a> (it is the easiest way not the hardest). From the same author you can learn SQL too. Then you will need to learn HTML and CSS, try <a href="https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web" target="_blank">https://www.codecademy.com/learn/web</a>. From code academy you can learn Javascript and Ruby too. To be honest you can use JavaScript for the frontend and backend too (nodejs) so you will have to learn just one programming language.</div><div><br></div><div>You have a bachelor in natural languages, programming (artificial languages) are a bit different, they are something between natural languages and computer hardware. However Ruby is very expressive and you might find it not too difficult to understand. Programming languages like Haskell are coming from Maths (lambda calculus) and the look much more like Mathematics.</div><div><br></div><div>So if I were you I would learn HTML and CSS, then JavaScript. Then you can decide if you want to learn nodejs (javaScript) or Ruby. Then SQL.</div><div><br></div><div>I assumed that you want to learn web development.</div><div><br></div><div>Good luck! </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 10 April 2016 at 10:51, Tom Yates <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tomy8s@hotmail.com" target="_blank">tomy8s@hotmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><div dir="ltr">Dear all and hello,<div><br></div><div>I am looking at a career change into the world of programming, specifically ruby. I was wondering if anyone had some advice for me on:</div><div><br></div><div>1. How to prepare myself for working in (ruby) programming - i.e. what are useful things to know/learn beforehand.</div><div><br></div><div>2. The best places to look for (and hopefully find) a job.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>A bit about me:</div><div><br></div><div>Whilst working full-time I've been teaching myself ruby, PHP, html 5, css 3, js and a bit of SQL through watching online courses, mostly at <a href="http://udemy.com" target="_blank">udemy.com</a> and messing around with the language. I've just started reading "The Ruby Way" by Hal Fulton. I've uploaded my projects to <a href="http://github.com/tomy8s" target="_blank">github.com/tomy8s</a> (feel free to look!), and I've just started putting together a mess of a rails app at <a href="http://tomy8s.herokuapp.com" target="_blank">tomy8s.herokuapp.com</a> . I have a bachelors degree in languages (French, Spanish and Slovene) - vaguely related to a degree in ruby, python and C?</div><div><br></div><div>I'd be very grateful for any advice you could give, no matter how crazy/unusual it sounds.</div><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div><br></div><div>And thank you very much if you've read this far! :)</div><span><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Tom</div> </font></span></div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
Chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org" target="_blank">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a><br>
Archives: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
Manage your subscription: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
List info: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">-- <br><div><div dir="ltr">Riccardo Tacconi<br><br><a href="http://github.com/rtacconi" target="_blank">http://github.com/rtacconi</a><br><a href="http://twitter.com/rtacconi" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/rtacconi</a></div></div>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org" target="_blank">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a><br>
Archives: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
Manage your subscription: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
List info: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
</blockquote></div><div dir="ltr">-- <br></div></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div dir="ltr">Jimmy MG Lim</div>
</font></span><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a><br>
Archives: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
Manage your subscription: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/options.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
List info: <a href="http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>