Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

git init...And Get In It! (How I taught myself Rails and got a programming job in under a year)

git init...And Get In It! (How I taught myself Rails and got a programming job in under a year)

At RailsGirls Berlin (April 14, 2012), I gave a talk about how I learned programming (specifically Ruby on Rails) and got a programming job in under a year. It covers my story, the tools I used, and tips on using those tools.

Joan Wolkerstorfer

April 14, 2012
Tweet

More Decks by Joan Wolkerstorfer

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. git init...And Get In It! How I taught myself Rails

    and got a programming job in under a year Saturday, April 14, 12
  2. About Me • Joan Wolkerstorfer • Developer at mediapeers •

    joanwolk on twitter, github, & stackoverflow • gitinit.wordpress.com Saturday, April 14, 12
  3. Overview • My programming story • How I made it

    happen • Resources and how to use them Saturday, April 14, 12
  4. • January 2011: Started looking at Ruby and Rails teaching

    sites • February 2011: Started working through railstutorial.org • May 28-29, 2011: Attended EuRuKo • July 2011: Finished railstutorial and started internship with Upstream (cobot) • September 2011: Finished internship • November 2011: Started work at mediapeers Saturday, April 14, 12
  5. • Written for true beginners • Introduces and uses git,

    GitHub and heroku • Detailed explanations of all elements • Useful even for experienced coders • Full book for free • Videos and PDFs can be bought to support it Saturday, April 14, 12
  6. What is version control? • Version control: keeps track of

    what the project looked like for its whole history • Distributed version control: many people can work on the same project at the same time without problems • Use it now to: • Share on GitHub and post on heroku • Build good habits from the start Saturday, April 14, 12
  7. What is git? • Commit: Take a snapshot of your

    code • Repository: All your snapshots neatly arranged in one album • Most common version control in the Ruby community: lots of help is out there! • More information: • git-scm.com (official git site) • progit.org (a full book online, plus a blog) Saturday, April 14, 12
  8. What is GitHub? • Store your git repository for free

    online • Explore other people’s code • Watch: get a feed of updates to the repository • Fork: copy the repository so you can play with it • Collaborate on code • Pull request: ask the owner to add your changes • Review code • Find help with someone’s code • Issues: Find or submit tickets about a problem • Wiki: Some repositories have a wiki Saturday, April 14, 12
  9. What is heroku? • Hosting for Ruby/Rails sites using git:

    put your code out there for the world! • Free for small projects • Easy to scale up as projects grow Saturday, April 14, 12
  10. • Search it with Google, not the search field on

    the site, e.g. • site:stackoverflow.com rails passwords Stack Overflow Tips • As with any search, try adjusting your search terms if you don’t find what you want right away • If you can’t find it, ask it! Saturday, April 14, 12
  11. Rails Documentation • api.rubyonrails.org • apidock.com/rails • railsapi.com • My

    personal favorite • Defaults to most current versions • Easy to choose specific older versions • Shows Ruby and Rails results together Saturday, April 14, 12
  12. Rails Guides Tips • There are more guides on the

    main page than are listed in the index! • “In Progress” guides are still great help Saturday, April 14, 12
  13. GitHub Tips • Read the readme • Read the wiki,

    if there is one • Search the issues to see if someone else had the same problem • Submit your own issue if you still have a problem Saturday, April 14, 12
  14. Heroku Tips • devcenter.heroku.com to browse help topics • Use

    Google to search the docs, e.g., • site:devcenter.heroku.com logs Saturday, April 14, 12
  15. • editors – vim, emacs, TextMate, Sublime, etc. • rubular.com

    – Regular expressions editor • Markdown – used to format comments on GitHub, and in various other places • http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax • pow.cx – Local server tool (Mac only) Development Tools Saturday, April 14, 12
  16. • Twitter Bootstrap (twitter.github.com/bootstrap) – CSS default settings • hslpicker.com

    – Color picker tool • visualmess.com – Design basics Design Tools Saturday, April 14, 12
  17. • RailsTutorial.org is fantastic • Help is available online •

    Dive into documentation • Be confident • Just code! In Conclusion Saturday, April 14, 12