Rails - Mar 2006 - Picking apart the rails codebase / transitioning from novice

Alright, I''ve done some tinkering and I''ve read through the
DHH book.

I''d like to humbly solicit some advice from the rails gurus.

I''d like to get a real firm grip, and it seems that navigating the 
actual codebase might be the best course of action.

Any advice as to the best route to take for maximum comprehension? What 
would be the most sensible way to tackle the different components?

In addition, what does a ''day in the life'' of a rails guru
look like?
How do you stay current? Do you read the actual commit diffs? The recent 
changes? Subscribe to the wiki RSS?

In other words, outside of raw experience, what does the behavioral 
transition from ''novice'' look like?

Thanks

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2006/3/23, Mike <spam@spam.com>:
> In other words, outside of raw experience, what does the behavioral
> transition from ''novice'' look like?
Coding applications ?  Finding bugs, entering the Rails source code to
find the source of the bug, producing patches.  That''s about it, I
guess.  I never set myself to read the whole code base - there''s just
too much code in there.

I stay current by being active on the mailing list, following blogs
around the world, and subscribing to the Rails Trac feeds: changesets
and patches.

Hope that helps !
--
Fran?ois Beausoleil
http://blog.teksol.info/

Honestly, the straight dope is that it takes time, the most important thing
is to view the process as a journey, everybody starts off in the same place
- not knowing a thing about either Rails or about Ruby, and then goes from
there to knowing a little bit more each day.  My recommendation is to give
yourself some time to learn, succeed, and totally $#!$ things up, Rails
definitely makes big things happen dramatically but that''s not to say
that
it''s easy or doesn''t take a lot of effort to learn.  Rails is
built on the
idea of conventions and there is no way you are going to learn these
conventions without spending time on them, additionally Ruby takes a long
time to completely grok and if you are coming from a static language
environment, it may confound you with it''s mysteries that  will seem as
alien as the arches of Atlantis but slowly over time you''ll be
enchanted by
it''s magic.

Once you get past the initial discomfort you''ll find yourself at the
entrance to a road with a thousand paths and each one of them offers
something to learn about Rails, software development, and the practice of
programming in general, and by this time you are well on your way down the
road of Ruby riches only at this point you will not care where you end up,
only that you can continue with no end, and if you should venture so far
that you come to where the Ruby meets the sea...

Why the poignant will post something on Redhanded.com that will make you say
WTF?

And you''ll start all over again...

1) Read AWDWROR
2) Get Pickaxe and learn Ruby independent of Rails
3) Do the tutorial
4) Dream up an app
5) Start building it.
6) Get confused
7) Feel the urge to want to get help
8) Don''t
9) Figure out the solution
10) Feel the urge again to want to get help on something else
11) Do
12) Look at the source to learn more about Rails and Ruby
13) Ask yourself what you know about blocks and metaprogramming
14) Look around smell the roses and all of sudden realize that you are a
much different developer than when you first started
15) Profit

Takes about 3 - 12 months...

Welcome to the show.
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On Mar 23, 2006, at 9:07 PM, Tim Case wrote:
> Honestly, the straight dope is that it takes time, the most  
> important thing is to view the process as a journey, everybody  
> starts off in the same place - not knowing a thing about either  
> Rails or about Ruby, and then goes from there to knowing a little  
> bit more each day.  My recommendation is to give yourself some time  
> to learn, succeed, and totally $#!$ things up, Rails definitely  
> makes big things happen dramatically but that''s not to say that  
> it''s easy or doesn''t take a lot of effort to learn. 
Rails is built
> on the idea of conventions and there is no way you are going to  
> learn these conventions without spending time on them, additionally  
> Ruby takes a long time to completely grok and if you are coming  
> from a static language environment, it may confound you with it''s
> mysteries that  will seem as alien as the arches of Atlantis but  
> slowly over time you''ll be enchanted by it''s magic.
>
> Once you get past the initial discomfort you''ll find yourself at  
> the entrance to a road with a thousand paths and each one of them  
> offers something to learn about Rails, software development, and  
> the practice of programming in general, and by this time you are  
> well on your way down the road of Ruby riches only at this point  
> you will not care where you end up, only that you can continue with  
> no end, and if you should venture so far that you come to where the  
> Ruby meets the sea...
>
> Why the poignant will post something on Redhanded.com that will  
> make you say WTF?
>
> And you''ll start all over again...
>
> 1) Read AWDWROR
> 2) Get Pickaxe and learn Ruby independent of Rails
> 3) Do the tutorial
> 4) Dream up an app
> 5) Start building it.
> 6) Get confused
> 7) Feel the urge to want to get help
> 8) Don''t
> 9) Figure out the solution
> 10) Feel the urge again to want to get help on something else
> 11) Do
> 12) Look at the source to learn more about Rails and Ruby
> 13) Ask yourself what you know about blocks and metaprogramming
> 14) Look around smell the roses and all of sudden realize that you  
> are a much different developer than when you first started
> 15) Profit
>
> Takes about 3 - 12 months...
>
> Welcome to the show.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Haha!  ++
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