DABlog

First things first:

In case you haven’t heard about it, I’m very excited to report that I am teaming up with two other Ruby programmer-authors, namely:

• Gregory Brown, author of Ruby Best Practices, and
• Jeremy McAnally, author of Ruby in Practice

to present The Compleat Rubyist, a two-day Ruby training event in Tampa, Florida, January 22-23 2010.

The idea behind the event

It all started with the books.

We got the idea of doing some kind of joint project because our books (including the two above, plus my book, The Well-Grounded Rubyist) complement each other really nicely. My book is a language tutorial. Jeremy’s book (to which both Greg and I contributed) contains advice about using Ruby in a series of application contexts. Greg’s book makes a different kind of pass through the language, with an eye to idiomatic, productive techniques.

A training event seemed like the perfect collaborative effort. We’ve designed an unusual format, optimized for in-depth learning and for a workshop/hands-on style.

Who’s it for?

I’ve been training Ruby programmers for years, and I can tell you that it’s very common to become quite good at Ruby but still have room for getting deeper into how things work, what the best practices are, and other areas.

I’d say that’s the “sweet spot” for our attendees: people who have been using Ruby, and want to go further in their understanding and skills.

Does that mean intermediate? advanced? talented beginner?

Hard to say. I’d like to think that almost any Ruby programmer can get something out of spending two days with us. (And we’re hoping to get a lot out of it too.) We’re not that concerned with pinpointing a level. Have a look at the event description, and decide whether it sounds good for you.

See you there, we hope!

We’re happy to field questions, if you have any. There’s a contact link on the event website, as well as links for registering and for more info about the venue.