Ruby Master Class

Christina Thompson@Xtina_Starr

c.thompsonms@gmail.com

Intro

• Learning to code with Skillcrush• Found a new passion…Now what?• Ada

Why I love

• Beginner Friendly• It’s Flexible• The Community• Rails

The Struggles of Learning

• Learning your first programming language is really hard!– It’s abstract and not really natural.

• Git, Ruby, and the Ruby Docs are magic, but I promise it “gits” better!

When It Started to Click

• The HTTP Request Cycle

Understanding the HTTP Request Cycle

• Helped focus on a particular state.• State – all of the stored information (e.g.

methods and variables) at a given instances in time that a program has access to.

State

Ask the Right Questions

• What methods and variables are available in a particular state?– Tip: to figure out what methods are available to an

object you can call .methods on it• What type of object are you working with?• What a method is called on an object what

value is return?

Debugging

• SyntaxError - Raised when encountering Ruby code with an invalid syntax.– [1, 2, 3, 4].delete(2

• TypeError - Raised when encountering an object that is not of the expected type.– [1, 2, 3].first(“two”)

• NameError - Raised when a given name is invalid or undefined.– string.chomp

• ArgumentErrors - Raised when the arguments are wrong and there isn't a more specific Exception class.– [1, 2, 3, 4].delete

Debugging

• Using puts and inspect• Better Errors Gem

Getting Better At Ruby

• Practice practice practice• Being patient it will come• Reading other people's code• Explaining your code to others• Solving problems like FizzBuzz in different

ways• Asking questions• Being fearless

Resources

• Ruby Docs• RubyMonk (tutorial)• Git Immersion (tutorial)• Stack Overflow• Learn to Program - The Facets of Ruby Series by

Chris Pine (book)• Computer Science Basics in Ruby (book)• The Ruby Style Guide• Google :-)