Welcome to Rook.
What is Rook?
This is my Apprenticeship Thesis project. It is a Sinatra open source project I have been doing on the side to hone my skills as a Ruby apprentice. The idea is for those with knowledge to create learning opportunities. Whether it be pairing on a kata in Ruby or a whole course in Common Lisp I want to make it easier for people to offer their time/skills and easier for people to find those opportunities.
Potential Mentees:
Where do you start? Everyone has a different learning style. Rook is shaped on my preferred style, learning by doing. I started to learn Ruby at the beginning of this year. After a month buried in books and tutorials, I didn't know what to do, I needed direction, a harness for my newly found love of programming. I made a post on Reddit and asked the question, "How did you get your first job developing Ruby?". They first directed me to find local user groups which is rock solid advice I pass on to everyone I know starting out. Then they did something I was not expecting, a few offered to take time and pair with me. This was the first time I felt the true generosity and passion of developers, a positive quality of every true craftsman I have ever met. Two days after I made that post I was learning TDD from a man I had never met, that had over 15 years of experience, on a Friday night. My palms were sweating as he spent an hour and a half with me on Skype talking through red, green, refactor and some basic Rails. He had the time, and he gave it to me, a complete internet stranger newbie. I was in awe. But it didn't end there, another person from England spent the next month pairing with me as we went through Micheal Hartl's Rails Tutorial together. He had a CS degree and was an iOS developer but he wanted to learn rails. So why not pair with a new person? And during that awesome time of getting up early to make bad english jokes I went to my first user group and met Cory. I started meeting with Cory every week and pairing with him. Little did I know Cory was looking for an Apprentice for Groupon. Because of my experience with other developers, my enthusiasm for learning was on fire. Turns out that is exactly the kind of person Groupon was looking for. So, three months after I had touched my first terminal window, I was officially an Apprentice due in no small part to a shot in the dark question on Reddit.
Potential Mentors:
Not only am I developing this app for potential mentees, I am developing this app to make it easier for passionate craftsmen to pass on their skills to others. Whether it be to fellow craftsmen or to brand new apprentices, there is a demand for your knowledge. Teaching is learning and Rook will make passing on those skills dirt simple. The developer community is full of knowledge and if Rook can tap just a fraction of that to pass onto others, the community will only get better.
Developing Rook:
Based on my experience, I want to make it easier for it to happen to other people. I want to make an official place for people to find/create learning opportunities. Whether it be a course, pairing on a project, doing a tutorial together or even just a short kata, I want to make the Rookery the place to go pass on your craft to others and for clever birds to hone their skills. Right now, I have the foundation built. But I want to develop the rest of the features for real users. And that is where you come in. Over the next couple of weeks I want to gather beta users and start a feedback loop. I would like to know what you want from Rook. What will make it easier for you to take an hour out of your day to to remote pair with someone? What will make it easier for you to find the types of learning opportunities you are most interested in?
Feedback loop:
I have started a subreddit /r/rook for starting threads on potential features, bugs and for me to post news about development.