Rails Coach

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In this episode, we discuss why your application needs tests. Here’s a summary of the thoughts given in this episode:

Why you should test:

1. You know your code works the way you expect.
2. You guarantee that later changes to your code don’t break existing functionality.
3. It documents your code.

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In order to contribute as an employee or a freelance developer, we need to understand the nature of business. Specifically, we need to understand the nature of how our employer or client makes money so we understand our contribution and so we recognize where our value is.

Once we understand the nature of business, we can look for other pain points people are facing and find ways to solve those problems. That’s how we get paid.

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This week’s episode is about work fulfillment. To start out, I provide context for my experience by briefly reviewing my work history. Then we go into the 6 things that I believe are critical to a great job. The 6 P’s that define a great job:

• Passion
• Purpose
• People
• Progress
• Project
• Pay

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In this interview with Pratik, we discuss several things, including:

• Cramp – A web framework in Ruby (the repo on github)
• Practicing coding – Write more code
• Reading other people’s code
• Rails Core
• 37Signals
• Freelancing
• Submitting patches to Ruby on Rails
• Rails 3 (the repo on github)
• Arel
• Learning to Program
• Adapting other people’s code
• Testing
• Best Practices (the Basics)
• Code Organization
• Shoulda
• Webrat

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Here is the link to my blog post about coding exercises.

Here’s a short list of the coding exercises that are out there.

• Project Euler
• My Project Euler Solutions
• Ruby Quiz
• Code Katas
• http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2006/06/16/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-language-part-1/
• http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2006/06/16/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-language-part-2-data-structures/
• http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2006/06/16/15-exercises-to-know-a-programming-language-part-3-libraries-frameworks-and-mashups/
• http://programmingpraxis.com/
• http://codingkata.org

Here’s an awesome example of a code kata: http://charlesmaxwood.com/8-lessons-from-corey-haines-performance-kata/

Programming exercises are terrific with a mentor. Check out the episode on mentors.

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Remember to leave feedback by calling 801-753-8279 or emailing podcast@railscoach.com.

Conferences are a great way to learn and meet people.

The conferences I’ve attended:

• Mountain West RubyConf
• RubyConf
• RailsConf

Tips for getting the most out of conferences:

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During the interview with James, we talked about several things. You can find him on twitter at http://twitter.com/JEG2

James ran the RubyQuiz for 3 years and wrote Best of Ruby Quiz Volume One (Pragmatic Programmers) and Textmate: Power Editing for the Mac (Pragmatic Programmers).

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This week I talked to Ben Johnson, who built the authlogic and memorylogic (among many other) libraries for the Ruby and Rails communities. He talked to me about the side business he’s running, what he looks for in developers who come work for him, and about being a passionate programmer.

If you want to keep up with him and what he’s doing, you can check out his blog or his github profile. He also said that he’ll be at RailsConf this year in Baltimore.

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One of the things that has helped me the most in learning to program well is having a good mentor. I didn’t necessarily choose mine, but I’ve had some excellent mentors. Here’s what made them great for me.

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This episode is my interview with Gregg Pollack. We had a great discussion about podcasting and podcast styles, users’ groups, what makes a good developer, Envy Labs, and a whole lot more. Here are links to several of the things we discuss.