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i have been working professionally with ruby on rails for about 3 months now, coming mainly from a javascript ecosystem. im still struggling. there's a lot of

i have been working professionally with ruby on rails for about 3 months now, coming mainly from a javascript ecosystem. im still struggling. there's a lot of magic happening. i'm not bad with the ruby language itself. but i"m so used to first principles. im open to suggestions on improvement here

hirundo 4y ago
I suggest getting comfortable with pry and pry_rails, and use them to get to the code behind the magic. For example try `ls <object>`, `cd <object>`, `show-source <object>`. These tend to be obscure features, but add a whole lot of visibility to Ruby code.
shagymoe 4y ago
My suggestion is to read and re-read the Ruby guides and documentation. Trying to just "figure out" what Rails is doing and why is a frustrating experience. Taking the time to understand the higher level concepts and methodology is critical.
nilespotter 4y ago
Learn the ruby metaprogramming model inside and out, start reading the rails source starting with activesupport
horsawlarway 4y ago
As an alternative to the voices below - I did this path, I'm now 4+ years in at a RoR's shop and I came in with basically no background in Ruby or Rails. I personally just don't like Rails. I find it annoying at best, and utterly infuriating at worst. It's a modern ASP.net - if you want to do dead simple things, Rails does the job quickly and easily, with lots of nice generators, and simple drop in tools. If you want to do anything outside the happy path, you need to know the entire framework like the back of your hand, because you'll need to unwind the magic and they shoved far too much magic into what should be a simple thing. And just like ASP.net - the magic changes every version because "best practices" for the web are also changing incredibly quickly. What magic incantation you need depends on which version of the framework you're running, and the docs are bad on this front. I get Rails - but it is very much not my cup of tea. I don't want to learn their specific DSL and unwind all their magic when I already understand the topic at hand, and just want it to do the thing I'm asking it to.

hirundo 4y ago

I suggest getting comfortable with pry and pry_rails, and use them to get to the code behind the magic. For example try `ls <object>`, `cd <object>`, `show-source <object>`. These tend to be obscure features, but add a whole lot of visibility to Ruby code.

shagymoe 4y ago

My suggestion is to read and re-read the Ruby guides and documentation. Trying to just "figure out" what Rails is doing and why is a frustrating experience. Taking the time to understand the higher level concepts and methodology is critical.

nilespotter 4y ago

Learn the ruby metaprogramming model inside and out, start reading the rails source starting with activesupport

horsawlarway 4y ago

As an alternative to the voices below - I did this path, I'm now 4+ years in at a RoR's shop and I came in with basically no background in Ruby or Rails. I personally just don't like Rails. I find it annoying at best, and utterly infuriating at worst. It's a modern ASP.net - if you want to do dead simple things, Rails does the job quickly and easily, with lots of nice generators, and simple drop in tools. If you want to do anything outside the happy path, you need to know the entire framework like the back of your hand, because you'll need to unwind the magic and they shoved far too much magic into what should be a simple thing. And just like ASP.net - the magic changes every version because "best practices" for the web are also changing incredibly quickly. What magic incantation you need depends on which version of the framework you're running, and the docs are bad on this front. I get Rails - but it is very much not my cup of tea. I don't want to learn their specific DSL and unwind all their magic when I already understand the topic at hand, and just want it to do the thing I'm asking it to.