Learn Ruby The Hard Way - Workshop Primer

gistfile1.md

Bootstrapping for Rails Workshop

Go to Zed Shaw's guide on learning Ruby. http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Read the preface. It will be better for you if you follow his advice. At some point or another, you are going to feel confused, frustrated, and disappointed ALL AT ONCE. This is normal. Keep calm, step away for a few hours, or days and then get back in there.

Exercise 0

You all should have relatively new Macs. Check your ruby version is 1.9.2 in Terminal. If you don't have 1.9.2 or higher, stop and send me a message. Install the text editor. The 2 commands he wants you to learn are

• cd said change directory. Google for more information. Learn what these commands are doing cd ~, cd .., and cd .
• mkdir said make directory. Google again. Run this command mkdir ~/ruby. Figure out what that did.

Exercise 1

Any work you do during the guide, you should do in the ruby directory you created earlier. Before you start working, change into that directory- run cd ~/ruby. Do the extra credit. Don't rush.

Exercises 2-7

Do these over a couple weeks.

You can skip 8-11, skim them, or do them as well. Up to you.

Exercise 12

Do this. Programmers use code that other programmers wrote. Like Rails. When we write a Rails app, we are mixing our code with code that hundreds of other programmers have been writing for years. Neat.

You can skip 13-17.

Exercises 18 and 19

Do these. It's the largest leap of faith in programming you've made yet. Don't worry if you're confused. Wrestle with it.

Skip 20.

Exercise 21

More good stuff.

Exercise 22

You're ready. If you have extra time, keep going. This is fun right?!