Desi McAdam. Back to articles list
How to become successful rubyist
Senior developer Desi McAdam is Hashrocket's resident bleeding heart. Along with co-founding DevChix, an organization geared specifically toward women in development, she’s a member of other socially progressive and humanitarian groups. She’s nearing the completion of her pilot’s license, likes to break into tourist attractions around the world and wants to wrestle a pig someday. Desi has a broad background of skills from system administration to web development (including several years experience with Agile practices) and earned her degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.
I worked for ThoughtWorks where a Ruby practice was formed by Obie Fernandez. I was lucky enough to get on a Ruby project while working with them.
Where, and how, do you search for work now? Can you give me some advice on the best ways to find Ruby related work?
I would suggest building something you can show off and then checking some of the ruby on rails blogs for jobs. Here is a good place to look however I wouldn't try to get a job doing Ruby and Ruby On Rails until you have a good bit of experience.
What advice would you give a Ruby beginner without any projects ready to show?
Pick something to build. Look at the world around you and think of something that might help. Maybe your friend wants to be able to locate the playgrounds near their house.. build an app to let them. Things like that. Make sure to ready blogs. The code kata's are a good place to go to practice as well as the ruby quiz site. rubyquiz.com and codekata.pragprog.com (the kata's are on the left)
What have you learned in the past about working with Ruby, clients, how to find good clients, etc.? Many people dream about changing the past for a better present moment ... anything you want to share?
Nope everything before has lead to here so I am good with the past. If I feel I haven't done something I should, I make myself do it now.
What books, or sites, or recipes, or whatever else you can recommend (they may be about productivity, or negotiation, or thinking - anything you think will help me live a better life as a programmer)?
See above
How much time per week do you work? How do you keep yourself productive and focused?
40 hours a week and I stay productive because I pair all the time.
I use the following:
- Ruby = language
- Rails = framework (Obie wrote "The Rails Way")
- Git = version control
- Cucumber = integration testing
- Rspec = unit testing
- MongoDB = document database
- Postgres = relational database
- MySql = relational database
- SqlLite = relational database
- Vim = code editor
- Pivotal Tracker = story cards/project management
- Basecamp = document sharing and collaboration
- Engine Yard = staging site hosting provider
How do recommend becoming a successful and profitable programmer?
Look up some of Obie's presentations.
What should every programmer know?
Lots of stuff.
I hope this was helpful.
Thank you for your time and attention.
