On 7 Oct 2008, at 12:32, Francis Fish wrote: > I think you do need to understand what blocks and yield do.
Absolutely. > I remember being a little bewildered by the skateboard book until I > caught onto what was happening underneath. Too much Ruby magic. AWDwR is actually a pretty awful tutorial, IMHO. It's what most of learned from, but it left with me more in awe rather in understanding and I've had to "undo" a lot of what it tried to make me think in terms of Rails. It's not OK to do what it suggests and have a nearly functioning app with a load of Ruby in it you don't understand and then start testing. You need to get to grips with Ruby to a point where you understand why it does the things it does, then understand how Rails works from the ground-up (it was 12 months before I realised that .htaccess was as critical as routes.rb in some instances), and then you need to understand how to write tests before you start writing lots of code. And why no programming book I've ever read doesn't teach version control on page 1, I don't know... > And don't forget thin controller fat model and why it's good. Absolutely agree. I have a little on that, but I think it's worth fleshing out more: this client has specifically asked that the training is "opinion-thick, syntax-thin" because he realises Rails is an opinionated framework and syntax is something you can pick up from manuals, whilst opinion/philosophy is something you need to discuss/ argue with the teacher about. :-) > And avoiding tons of conditional code in your views by writing > helpers (wish I practised what a preach more often, usually starts > with one simple if that doesn't seem to need a helper and then grows > exponentially until a rewrite is needed). Yeah, I preach that one and don't practice it enough. My helpers are often incredibly thin in practice, but if rcov is telling me I'm > 80% coverage I feel confident moving it around and re-factoring, but if I'm think on coverage (which on rushed projects I sometimes can be, despite my own preachings), I feel nervous about that approach. -- Paul Robinson http://vagueware.com :: [EMAIL PROTECTED] :: +44 (0) 7740 465746 Vagueware Limited is registered in England/Wales, number 05700421 Registered Office: 3 Tivoli Place, Ilkley, W. Yorkshire, LS29 8SU Correspondence: 55 Velvet Court, Granby Row, Manchester, M1 7AB --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
