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by staunch 4772 days ago
You might benefit a lot from just watching how Unix-based developers work. Screencasts are a really good way to do that. You can learn a lot from just watching and following a long. Just re-type things verbatim at first - while you're getting comfortable. Do not copy/paste at all. If you're doing web projects then don't even think about anything other than Ruby or Python. Try them both out, pick whichever one seems more comfortable. Don't sweat it.
2 comments
myvii 4772 days ago
This is a really good idea. I think it would help a lot. Do you know of any good screencasts?

As an avid collector of links, I know of these paid sites:

[1] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts - Seems more advanced than an intro course.

[2] http://www.letscodejavascript.com/ - Looks good, but for javascript. It does look like it's better geared toward beginners.

[3] https://peepcode.com/ - Has play-by-play's, but it's quite expensive.

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jdlshore 4771 days ago
> [2] http://www.letscodejavascript.com/ - Looks good, but for javascript. It does look like it's better geared toward beginners.

Author of letscodejavascript.com here. The series is intended for professional developers, so I don't spend any time on "this is the command line, this is a variable," but we do build an application from scratch. It's very much the immersion approach, and we cover a lot of things OP is wondering about (command line, Node, npm, Git, TDD). It could well be a good fit.

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grrrando 4772 days ago
Totally.

Taking it a step further, if you're able to find a friend or a willing mentor, pair program for a couple sessions to get the flow of things. You'll get into it quicker, will be able to ask complex questions and get solid answers, and probably have some fun along the way.

And both the easiest and hardest way to learn a language or framework is to put yourself (or have someone else put you) up against a deadline. Urgency is a good thing.

Don't sweat the nitty-gritty when you're just starting out. You'll get to that stuff when you need to. You can always refactor in better code. And that refactoring will encourage you by showing how much better you've gotten.

EDIT: Meant to mention the great http://railscasts.com. Together with the pairing I mentioned above, RC really got me up to speed on Ruby / Rails - came from a generalist C#/PHP/JS background a few years back.

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