So Boom — I’m Learning Ruby
In order to pass the tests required of me to get into a bootcamp (I’ll go over my prep work and the reason I chose the school that I did in a future post), I was required to learn quite a bit of JavaScript. It’s the first language I’ve learned, aside from a little exposure to QBasic as a kid, and I was proud of how quickly I picked up on a lot of it. Flatiron doesn’t just focus on JavaScript though, they teach Ruby as well.
I got my prep work from Flatiron and it mainly consists of learning Ruby, so it’s time to start on that. Before I get to Flatiron’s prep though, I’ve decided to take the same approach that I did for JavaScript. I’m working my way through some Codecademy courses to get a quick introduction, and I’ll look at some stuff on Pluralsight after. Once I feel like I’ve got a decent base, I’ll jump into the Flatiron prep work, which demands a lot more thought than fill-in-the-blanks or follow-along tutorials.
So far, I’m really digging Ruby, and I’m really glad I didn’t learn it as my first language. The syntax is simple, and I’m able to tell what programs do even before I run them. Ruby doesn’t have the crazy amount of brackets that make JavaScript look so much more intimidating. Check it out.
JavaScript
console.log(‘Printing a thing to the screen’)
Ruby
print ‘Printing a thing to the screen’
No parentheses, no strange “console log” command, just tell Ruby to print the thing you want printed. Bing. Bang. Boom. I’m sure as I get more into it I’ll discover all sorts of crazy stuff, but straight off the bat, it’s beautiful in its simplicity.
Originally published at thedickward.com on August 23, 2017.
