Registrations are now open for RubyLearning’s popular Ruby programming course. This is an intensive, online course for beginners that helps you get started with Ruby programming.

Here is what Sandra Randall (Butler), a participant who just graduated, has to say – “You kindly offered me the opportunity to join your Ruby course. I’m new to development and found the course, even though basic for programmers, a little tricky for me. I managed to complete all of the assessments and really learnt a lot. Thank you very much for the opportunity. It has really given me the push I needed to learn Ruby and I’m currently treading my way through both the pickaxe and Agile Development books and enjoying it. I’ve recently been offered a position as a Junior Systems Developer at a local Software house in South Africa – all thanks to the push you gave me which gave me the motivation and drive to get going.”

What’s Ruby?

Ruby

According to http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ – “Ruby is a dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. Ruby’s elegant syntax is natural to read and easy to write.”

Yukihiro Matsumoto, the creator of Ruby, in an interview says -

I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don’t want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers. I tried to make people enjoy programming and concentrate on the fun and creative part of programming when they use Ruby.

What Will I Learn?

In the Ruby programming course, you will learn the essential features of Ruby that you will end up using every day. You will also be introduced to Git, GitHub, HTTP concepts, RubyGems, Rack and Heroku.

Depending on participation levels, we throw a Ruby coding challenge in the mix, appropriate for the level we are at. We have been known to give out a prize or two for the ‘best’ solution.

Who’s It For?

A beginner with some knowledge of programming..

You can read what past participants have to say about the course. Click here.

Mentors

Satish Talim, Michael Kohl, Satoshi Asakawa, Victor Goff III and others from the RubyLearning team.

Dates

The course starts on Saturday, 28th Jan. 2012 and runs for seven weeks.

RubyLearning’s IRC Channel

Most of the mentors and students hang out at RubyLearning’s IRC (irc.freenode.net) channel (#rubylearning.org) for both technical and non-technical discussions. Everyone benefits with the active discussions on Ruby with the mentors.

How do I register and pay the course fees?

  • The course is based on the The Ultimate Guide to Ruby Programming eBook. This book is normally priced at US$ 19.95 and we are discounting it US$ 10.00 by combining it in the Course+eBook option below.
  • You can pay either by Paypal or send cash via Western Union Money Transfer or by bank transfer (if you are in India). The fees collected helps RubyLearning maintain the site, this Ruby course, the Ruby eBook, and provide quality content to you.
  • Once you pay the fees below, register on the RubyLearning.org site and send us your name and registered email id while creating an account at RubyLearning.org to satish [at] rubylearning [dot] com
  • We will enroll you into the course. If you have purchased the eBook at the time of registration, we will personally email you the eBook within 24 hours.

You can pay the Course Fees by selecting one of the three options from the drop-down menu below. Please select your option and then click on the “Add to Cart” button.

Register

At the end of this course you should have all the knowledge to explore the wonderful world of Ruby on your own.

Here are some details on how the course works:

Important:

Once the course starts, you can login and start with the lessons any day and time and post your queries in the forum under the relevant lessons. Someone shall always be there to answer them. Just to set the expectations correctly, there is no real-time ‘webcasting’.

Methodology:

  • The Mentors shall give you URL’s of pages and sometimes some extra notes; you need to read through. Read the pre-class reading material at a convenient time of your choice – the dates mentioned are just for your guideline. While reading, please make a note of all your doubts, queries, questions, clarifications, comments about the lesson and after you have completed all the pages, post these on the forum under the relevant lesson. There could be some questions that relate to something that has not been mentioned or discussed by the mentors thus far; you could post the same too. Please remember that with every post, do mention the operating system of your computer.
  • The mentor shall highlight the important points that you need to remember for that day’s session.
  • There could be exercises every day. Please do them.
  • Participate in the forum for asking and answering questions or starting discussions. Share knowledge, and exchange ideas among yourselves during the course period. Participants are strongly encouraged to post technical questions, interesting articles, tools, sample programs or anything that is relevant to the class / lesson. Please do not post a simple "Thank you" note or "Hello" message to the forum. Please be aware that these messages are considered noises by people subscribed to the forum.

Outline of Work Expectations:

  1. Most of the days, you will have exercises to solve. These are there to help you assimilate whatever you have learned till then.
  2. Some days may have some extra assignments / food for thought articles / programs
  3. Above all, do take part in the relevant forums. Past participants will confirm that they learned the best by active participation.

Some Commonly Asked Questions

  • Qs. Is there any specific time when I need to be online?
    Ans. No. You need not be online at a specific time of the day.
  • Qs. Is it important for me to take part in the course forums?
    Ans. YES. You must Participate in the forum(s) for asking and answering questions or starting discussions. Share knowledge, and exchange ideas among yourselves (participants) during the course period. Participants are strongly encouraged to post technical questions, interesting articles, tools, sample programs or anything that is relevant to the class / lesson. Past participants will confirm that they learned the best by active participation.
  • Qs. How much time do I need to spend online for a course, in a day?
    Ans. This will vary from person to person. All depends upon your comfort level and the amount of time you want to spend on a particular lesson or task.
  • Qs. Is there any specific set time for feedback (e.g., any mentor responds to me within 24 hours?)
    Ans. Normally somebody should answer your query / question within 24 hours.
  • Qs. What happens if nobody answers my questions / queries?
    Ans. Normally, that will not happen. In case you feel that your question / query is not answered, then please post the same in the thread – “Any UnAnswered Questions / Queries”.
  • Qs. What happens to the class (or forums) after a course is over? Can you keep it open for a few more days so that students can complete and discuss too?
    Ans. The course and its forum is open for a month after the last day of the course.

Remember, the idea is to have fun learning Ruby.

Subscribe to the waiting list of the free, online “Intermediate Ruby Course“.

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Posted by Satish Talim

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(Based on Twitter Re-tweets)

The year 2011 saw RubyLearning’s awesome guest authors write and share their knowledge with others. If you missed any of these useful articles then here’s the roundup of the 5 most popular articles of 2011 on RubyLearning. Enjoy!

Throw, Catch, Raise, Rescue… I’m so confused!

Avdi Grimm explains the usage of Throw, Catch, Raise, Rescue in the Ruby programming language.

You’ve probably noticed that Ruby has throw and catch… but they don’t seem to be used the way you’re used to in other languages! And there are also these begin, raise and rescue statements that seem to do the same thing. What’s going on here?

Read the rest of the article: Throw, Catch, Raise, Rescue… I’m so confused!

Performance Testing Rails Applications – How To?

Gonçalo Silva shows you how to do performance testing of your Rails applications.

Rails’ performance testing tools allow you to quickly detect performance bottlenecks. As a rule of thumb, use benchmarking to detect the problem and then use profiling to understand it.

Read the rest of the article: Performance Testing Rails Applications – How To?

Do you ponder what to name things in your code?

Evan Light asks – do you ponder what to name things in your code?

Most of the time, someone has to maintain that pile of crap you just birthed! It may be someone else. It may be you! But it’s always wise to pretend that the person who will own your code next is an axe-wielding lunatic who knows where you live!

Read the rest of the article: Do you ponder what to name things in your code?.

How do I smell Ruby code?

Timon Vonk talks about Ruby code smells in an effort to improve Ruby code.

Writing bad code isn’t a bad thing. Not understanding the problem you’re trying to solve any better after having written that piece of code is. Fortunately, that happens far less often.

Read the rest of the article: How do I smell Ruby code?

How do I test my code with Minitest?

Steve Klabnik introduces the readers to Ruby’s minitest.

You run your program, try a few different inputs, check the outputs, and see that they’re right. Then, you make some changes in your code, and you’d like to see if they work or not, so you fire up Ruby and try those inputs again. That repetition should stick out. There has to be a better way.

Read the rest of the article: How do I test my code with Minitest?

Your turn: Share the link to a roundup post you’ve written. If you’ve never written a roundup, try it this week. Be sure to share the link to your post here!

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Posted by Satish Talim

Buzz Follow me on Twitter to communicate and stay connected

17 comments