I originally wrote this series of posts on my former blog, Usable Web Apps. As I’m retiring that blog, I’m reposting the “Novice to Ninja” series. Look for some new interviews as well!
Next up, we have Nathaniel Talbott, founder of Terralien, a Rails consultancy based in Raleigh, NC. (Terralien also wins my award for “coolest looking website for a Rails shop”.) Nathaniel is a frequent speaker at RailsConf, RubyConf, and has been doing Ruby for several years. (In fact, if memory serves, he wrote the testing framework that became Test::Unit.) Nathaniel was kind enough to share his answers with us:
Usable Web Apps: What three skills/technologies would you recommend that novice Rails developers focus on mastering to best improve their overall value?
Nathaniel Talbott:1. Learn to engage with the community. Find a local Ruby brigade and get involved. In addition to going to meetings, you should leverage the mailing list like crazy: it’ll be a lot lower volume than one of the worldwide lists but usually has lots of experts listening in. And of course, there’s a lot more to local community besides Ruby: you can check out the local web design meetup, attend your local BarCamp, and generally plug in to any community that’s related to what you’re doing.
2. Learn to communicate well with clients. One of the things I love about Ruby is that it allows us to shorten the feedback cycle between idea and implementation, but you have to actively work to leverage that when communicating with clients. So deploy your code every day, code up quick prototypes right in the meeting with a client, or even do 24-48 hour “rumbles” on client projects where you quickly get a big chunk of functionality pushed out. Work to translate your increased productivity in to direct visible gains for the client.
3. The one technical tip I’ll give is this: learn some C. At least dabble with it enough that you could write an extension if you needed to. Ruby has one of the easiest to use C extension schemes out there, and you can use something like RubyInline to make it even easier. It always pays to have at least a basic understanding of the technology that your technology of choice rests on, and for Ruby that means learning C. Beyond the benefits, it’s also a lot of hard-core geeky fun!
Usable Web Apps: What are the biggest mistakes you see novice Rails developers make when trying to strengthen their skill sets?
Nathaniel Talbott: Biggest mistake, related to tip #1 above, is going it alone. While you should always do your due diligence before asking the question, my experience is that new folks tend to wait way to long before asking for help. A lot of times just formulating your question for a larger audience will help you find the answer, and it’s awful to spend hours (or days!) stuck on the same issue. Quick rule of thumb: if you’ve been trying to figure something out for an hour and have made no headway, then wrap it up in to an intelligent question and ask a relevant community for help.
Thanks, Nathaniel!
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