A few things to note: * come along to the meetings, come along to the Rails Camps (if you're planning to be in Australia in November, make sure you grab a ticket to the Rails Camp happening then when they're released - the upcoming June camp tickets disappeared in a matter of minutes). They're a great way to meet other people coding with Ruby, to learn from them, to share things with them. If there are Code Retreats and other such skill-focused events, they're extremely worthwhile as well. It may also lead to jobs.
* Write code - and if Ruby's the focus, then write Ruby code. Find a little itch that needs fixing, and write code to deal with it (unless it's an actual itch, then perhaps seeing a doctor is better). The more code you write, the more confident you'll be about your code, the easier it gets for contributing to open source projects. * As you write code, you'll use other peoples' libraries, and thus get a better feeling for the styles of code you like - so read the code of those libraries. I use `bundle open [gem name]` *all* the time - it's often a better source of information for how gems work than their documentation. The more you navigate other peoples' code, the better you will be at doing so, and you'll learn a heap. * Once you've got some knowledge of Ruby, and you come across things that are worth sharing, do so - especially by giving talks at the meetings. I blame/thank Tim Lucas for prodding me to speak at the very first Rails Camp - which was certainly a nervous experience. I'm far more comfortable these days because I've had a ton of practice - almost every time it gets a little easier. * If Melbourne's where you're looking, and you have the working situation that allows for it, consider working from Inspire9 in particular (and coworking spaces in general). There's a few experienced and friendly Rubyists there - Ryan Bigg, Ivan Vanderbyl, Nathan Sampimon, Sam Richardson, the Culture Amp crew, myself - who are often happy to answer questions (though granted, I'm away from next week for four months). Also, there's some amazing Ruby teams in Melbourne as well, should you get the opportunity to work with them (Envato and The Conversation both quickly come to mind) - essentially, find smart people and if possible, work with them. But the first three points I've listed are the key ones, I think: write code, read code, talk to coders. Also: there's some very smart Rubyists in Montreal as well, so you've no excuses for starting on all three of those right now! -- Pat On 21/05/2012, at 6:53 PM, Vincent Bonmalais wrote: > Hi, > > I'm currently looking for any kind of information or help to succeed in my > (crazy) attempt to become a RoR Junior Developer in Australia (FYI, the crazy > part will be explained very soon). > > Context: > > I have 2 years experience in CakePHP / ExtJS, a Master in Computer Science, > and a good experience with testing using Rspec/Selenium and deployment using > Capistrano. It's just been a few months since I actively try to work my way > around Ruby on Rails. Which means I'm reading a lot, and making a lot of test > code/projects. > > No fancy professional rails app running out there, and no outstanding > participation in the open source community yet. > > To top it all, I am currently not in Australia... I'm a bit of a > free-man-soul-who-can-live-wherever-there-is-food... I happen to have already > moved outside of my home country (Reunion Island [France] => Montreal > [Canada]) and plan on doing the same once again, which means moving to > Australia pretty soon. (so yes, I speak "le" french as a native language) > > What I want is: > > - Finding a job ;)? I would gladly accept any offer (if any), but this is not > the main goal of me making this thread. I am truthfully more interested in > finding out what have made you a competent, funny-to-speak-with developer. > > - As I heard, there is a mentorship program going on out there. I sure would > like to spam all of you with stupid questions, but I would vaguely prefer if > somebody would be interested in teaching me first. Who knows? Maybe I have > something interesting to teach you too. Need a french native speaker to > discuss with or learn the language? Have a problem on a legacy PHP or CakePHP > project? Just ask. (island spicy cooking is still on top of the list though). > > - Participating in the open source community. I read pull requests and issues > on a daily basis on Rails, but happen to not have the skill to propose > anything yet. Maybe you need help on a github project, or have a nice > starting point where a junior can place his efforts. > > - Any plan which makes the difference. I've already looked around and read > quite a few tutorials / books on various subjects, which goes from > CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, Mobile Programming, Flexible design... To > Cucumber, Rspec, Rails Best Practices (Thanks Code School...), etc. So maybe > you want to add something here, which will really make the difference, which > you hoped you'd knew sooner, an advice or a few words which changed your ruby > developer's life. > > - Also, making friends would be a great starting point too ! :) (that > actually may be the most important point during my trip...) > > Thanks for reading and have a nice day! > -- > Vincent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rails-oceania/-/xGbRACCutFEJ. > 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/rails-oceania?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" 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/rails-oceania?hl=en.
