Links: Ruby on Rails in the news and it's still rolling along

Robby Russell — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:12:00 -0600

Oh my! It seems that Ruby on Rails is getting more and more press…

Java facing pressures from dynamic languages, Computer World
Learning to love Web 2.0, BBC News
Riding The Ruby Rails In A New Direction, CRN

With Rails getting so much attention, it’s becoming insanely difficult, albeit fun, to keep up with the wave of interest in our Ruby on Rails development services.

I got really excited when I saw this list of Ruby and Rails related books that are coming out this year… including mine. This is excellent news as we move further into 2006.

Andy Budd saw this coming in early December…

“2006 is going to see Ruby on Rails development take off in a big way, with Rails developers never short of work. There will be an increasing number of hosts offering Rails support, as well as a slew of new books on the subject.”
- Andy Budd

...and regardless of the Help Vampires out there… I love this community.

Related Post(s):

Ruby eye for the anti-newbie guy

Robby Russell — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:44:00 -0600

I was skimming over a few RSS feeds ( blogs.thoughtworks.com ) this morning and came across an entry by Griffin Caprio. He shared his thought on the new book by Chris Pine, Learn to Program and says the following:

”...You wouldn’t see these types of books in other professions like medical, engineering, or accounting because there are boards that prevent just any old person from practicing in those fields.

Not so in computing. But is this what we want to encourage? Anyone and everyone picking up software and just giving it a go?

And I understand everyone’s love of Ruby, but come on people. It’s just a language.”

Actually, yes. Learning to program, build, create, test, problem solve, etc… are all things that we should encourage.

Let’s do a quick search on amazon for the following, Learn to Program. I’m pretty sure these books have been common place for the past 20+ years… so, what’s the big deal?

It’s like telling a kid not to build a bird house until he gets a contractors license and a permit.

...or telling someone to not pick up a guitar until they had proper lessons.

...or maybe you shouldn’t be running a business without graduating from college.

I could go on and on.

Oh… and by the way…

puts "Hello World"

is much sexier than

public static void main(String[] args) {
  System.out.println ("Hello World"); 
}

On that note… check out Learn to Program by Chris Pine.

UPDATE Griffin has followed up to my blog entry with another. He goes on to say, “The kid who builds the bird house above would never be hired to build an actual house. Not true in Software Development.” (read more)

I think this problem raises a completely different problem. Why are unqualified people being hired to do things that they aren’t qualified for? Do we blame the people learning to program or do we look at who hires these people in the first place? I’m still confused by his argument.

That kid may not get hired to build a house, but he may get interested in that as a career and continue to pursue it… if someone hires him to build the whole house, then the person hiring should be held accountable do some degree as well. Check references! ;-)

On the flip-side… is this an argument to only take people who have been approved by some board (...MCSE?) seriously when hiring developers?

Update #2

Griffin has outlined his points in more detail in this third entry.

Robby on Rails: Tag rant

Links: Ruby on Rails in the news and it's still rolling along

Ruby eye for the anti-newbie guy