[Brug-talk] Welcome

[verborghs]

On Mon, 2007-09-24 at 18:38 +0200, Jan De Poorter wrote:
> Hi Steven!
> 
> Welcome to the BRUG!
> 
> I like to think the power of RoR is not only the speed at which a
> site 
> can be built, but the supported methods of doing so. The whole
> concept 
> of Xtreme Programming, with TDD and Pair Programming might be 
> interesting, together with Behaviour Driven Development (with rspec). 
> The methodology is often more important then the language itself, and
> I 
> think RoR is a good language to teach this.
> 
> "Good Programming" is (in my book) more important then exact Rails 
> syntax, since the knowledge of the MVC, BDD or XP can be exported to 
> other languages.
> 
> Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Rgrds,
> Jan De Poorter
> Openminds BVBA
> 

That's right,

I think "Agile web development with RoR" is  the only books I read
through that also gives that aspect some attention. I'm still thinking
about a small project that gives them the change to work on it in small
teams. At the moment I'm working on a example project for them, so i can
guide them. Every week we will add some new feature. 

Also, not many other courses look into new innovations on the web so I
also feel I should add some not ruby specific things like the use of
microformats, Website as a service with REST, openid ... some "cool"
thing so to say, but more as the sugar ontop

You are definitely right about teaching skill that can be exported to 
other languages (and  not only languages). The more non-technical people
call them soft-skills :) But it's really difficult to test for those. I
think our best chance of seeing if someone is ready to be released in
the wild is through the "project weeks" where we follow their progress
and how they interact with us and with the members of their team.... but
you won't see that kind of evaluation on their final piece of paper ...
Just The Number

I have in my hand a bunch of people that if trained properly might do
some good in the future and not only able to follow but also to lead.

Steven