RailsMentors.org will help. This is one of my pet projects for RailsBridge, and we have a ton of volunteers.
Hell, ask me any time and I will teach you to write tests if you want.
My email is in my profile -- send me a note!
Got any mentors in the LA area?
There's a couple I think. If you create an account and enter in your location details, we sort mentors geographically close to you on the map page.
http://www.railsmentors.org/mentors
When you're a guest, it's just not really sorted.
Re:How to become successful Rubyist
by aaronblohowiak on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @01:29PM
(#1380891)
Take an afternoon to learn RSpec. there is plenty of documentation, free tutorials online or you can pay $9 to peepcode to get a screencast. Being self-directed goes a long way.
Yeah, I was definitely being a little whiny there. I did just pick up an RSpec book -- just wish TDD experience wasn't such a pre-req for getting a Ruby job.
Re:How to become successful Rubyist
by steveklabnik on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @02:04PM
(#1381016)
See, I'm actually the other way, I'm really glad that testing is such a huge part of Ruby's culture. In a language that gives you so much freedom, you need something to make sure you're not doing terrible things.
Also, writing tests is a skill. After knowing how, you still can actually get better at writing tests. It's not as easy as 'just teach me RSpec,' it's more like 'teach me functional programming' or something. It's much bigger than just switching languages.
I agree that it's important for the community as a whole. But for a junior position, isn't the key that the person can write working Ruby, can get along with the team, and has growth potential? Would you hire someone who had been a hobbyist, produced some cool, working web apps, but happened to not have written a single test for them?
Re:How to become successful Rubyist
by steveklabnik on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @09:25PM
(#1382382)
Totally. But knowing how to test puts you at a competitive advantage; if you had two applicants and one knew how to test already, wouldn't you hire that one?
I've been working on my own to learn Ruby, and I know TDD is a big part of things. Have you used the Peepcode screencast? Would that be a good starting point on RSpec?
railstutorial.org is a great place to learn the Rails/Rspec/github/heroku way of development and deployment.
Oh and just to tack on my Ruby specific gripe -- so what if I haven't written tests for my own stuff? Can't you teach me Rspec or whatever your shop uses instead of just tossing out my resume?