Paul Campbell. Back to articles list
How to become successful rubyist
Internet wayfarer, Ruby on Rails developer, Ardent foodie, aspiring musician
I didn't: I just decided to use Ruby instead of PHP for a job I was working on.
Where, and how, do you search for work now? Can you give me some advice on the best ways to find Ruby related work?
My only real advice is: just do good work. More usually follows. Keep up with standards and best practices, try to learn one new thing every project you do.
What advice would you give a Ruby beginner without any projects ready to show?
Get coding!
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?
Be careful about getting too excited up front and letting it blind you to reality. Visualise the future and make sure you're happy with the perceived outcome.
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)?
The Pragmatic Programmer is the best book on programming I've read.
How much time per week do you work? How do you keep yourself productive and focused?
Anything between 30 and 60 hours. Productivity ... it's really just down to the job. I find tools like Pivotal Tracker and writing Cucumber tests help keep me focussed.
Macbook Pro / Rails / Cucumber ... I also use Passenger as a dev environment / Textmate and a tool called RailsTerm that sets up my terminals with log / db / console etc.
How do recommend becoming a successful and profitable programmer?
Profit: spend less than you earn!
What should every programmer know?
There's more to life than programming.
Best of luck!
Thank you :)
