DISQUS

It's funny how things have changed in the past eight months since I wrote this post. Let's see some of your points:

* Being in control of my life - Well, I did get a much, much better job in New York, so I'd say I took control of my life very well.

* Never outshine the master - This is very, very true. Too bad my ex-boss was never the master of anything.

* Crying about my job - I don't consider this crying, just a way to vent some steam from a horrible week at the job. In any case, I got out of it and am in a much better place where I definitely won't be writing these types of post any time soon.

* "He will fire your easy to replace behind" - Sadly, he didn't get to fire me. It's been two months and they still haven't replaced me. And I still get contacted by ex-coworkers asking me if I can help them with some sort of problem, including asking me to do some more development work from here. Hmm... Seems like my easily-replaced behind isn't so bad after all.

* Being broke - Strange, I now live in a city ten times more expensive than Puerto Rico, yet have more money in the bank now in two months than I ever had in Puerto Rico for the past couple of years.

So I guess you missed the entire point of this post, but that's okay. I think you just wanted to show off your anonymous superiority on some guy's blog. If so, I really, truly hope you felt better about yourself, because I'm feeling better than ever.

carmelyne - I know these groups don't mean to be 'separatists' or anything. But to me, it just feels like these groups will label them as trying to be different. But maybe that's because I just wouldn't like to have some sort of already-existing gender gap to get wider. However, since I'm not a woman I most likely have no clue :)

Catherine - That's a pretty good example right there of why these groups exist in the first place. It sucks that the fact that women in software sometime feel like being 'abnormal' exists in the first place. I really am all for these groups existing for the reason you mention, and probably many other reasons as well. As long as they're done for reasons like these, it'll be great.

I really appreciate the comments for the ladies. It's awesome to hear from you and your point of view.

@Joan - Thanks for dropping by and clearing up some those comments. I only looked at that particular post and not the rest of the website, so I wasn't under the impression that the post (and the blog as a whole) was geared towards novices. I also didn't mean to imply that you're a "day-coder" or anything. I just wanted to say that the people who I know that stick to one language to try to "master" it (which more likely than not, they don't for some reason) are normally those without any passion of learning new things. Just by having and maintaining a blog to help others (look at this blog post I wrote a few weeks back) I know you're definitely passionate about what you do.

In any case, I think a bit of clarification on your part would've definitely helped before I wrote this :) Thanks for reading and clarifying, and I hope you didn't think I was bashing you or your blog.

@Tristan - I've heard that phrase, but I wasn't trying to get that point across in this post I wrote. If you notice in the end, I wrote that once you have a firm grasp of a programming language (to the point where you're confident saying "Yes, I know the language very well" in an interview), then you should learn something new. I didn't mean learn something a little bit, then move on to the next. I tried that when I was starting out, and it didn't work at all. However, your comment got me thinking, why would anyone apply for a job when they don't have the knowledge of what's required? For example, I've used Python for a bit now on my own time, but don't consider myself to be ready for any job that requires a Python developer. Simply put, I'm not a Python developer now, so I wouldn't even try to apply (unless they said that the job would train prospective employees to learn Python, but those generous types of jobs are few and far in between). I do get what you mean, but you probably misunderstood what I meant in my post.

Really, Dave has balls on his chin? Strange, the last time I saw a picture of him he had none. It was probably an old picture, or it was Photoshopped.

This seems to be like a good topic to generate some discussion. I'm pleased to read all these comments.

@Karmen - I don't know much Java, so I honestly wouldn't know where this would apply. Maybe there's some truth to this, since the Pragmatic Programmers released a book later on called Rails for Java Developers, so maybe Dave was gearing towards the Java audience.

@pjm - Which tutorial are you talking about? if you're referring to the Karaoke Jukebox machine Zed mentioned in his rant, then I would agree with you in that part. But that's just a segment of the book, not everything. I don't think there's a "perfect" programming book for any language, which is why I suggested reading more than one book on any given subject, to compensate missing language features from one book to another.

@Doug Bromley - As others have pointed out, Ruby was virtually non-existent in the minds of programmers in the U.S. before Pickaxe. There are a lot of folks who learned a lot from this book (as shown by my E-Mail to DHH). And popularity doesn't equal quality or greatness at any level, but I doubt the "masses" are "idiotic". Well, not all of them, at least. In no form I'm treating him as a saint. Can you blame him for getting into an untapped market to make money? I would've done the exact same thing. It's no coincidence Ruby experienced an increase in usage ever since his book came out.

@AkitaOnRails - Interesting that you've written a book. I know that it's not easy, especially for a virtual foreign programming language. I wasn't trying to be apologetic either. I'm just trying to point out that the Pickaxe book isn't the piece of garbage everyone's making it out to be recently.

@Robert - If you base your opinion on the book thanks to that particular segment, I don't think you're looking at the full picture. Like I've stated already, that segment was confusing, to say the least. The rest of the book was pretty solid, in my opinion. After I read Pickaxe, I went on to other Ruby books. But that didn't take away the fact that most of my Ruby learnings were thanks the Pickaxe book. I'm glad you went on to other books, though, and didn't shelf the language just because you didn't like one book on the subject.

@Ken - I'm glad you agree with my points. I didn't write this post to defend Dave. I just wanted to give my opinion on the book, because I think it's a good base to learn Ruby. Of course, it's my opinion, and as you can see, a lot of people have their own.

@an idiot - I'm guessing that's not your real name... I'm not sure what your opinions are, but thanks for stopping by, I guess.

@womble: Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I'm guessing you're not part of the 'noisy' web development community :)

However, just because the web development community isn't important to you, it doesn't mean it's not important to anyone at all. Let's take your example: we might find the 'marble community' stupid. But guess what? It isn't stupid to Jimmy. He loves his red marbles, he most likely celebrated when he his marble cracked Sam's marble. Hell, Sam probably went home with his cracked marble all bummed out. In other words: They give a shit. People like myself and the others who responded above (well, maybe except for Zed) give a shit about this community.

I respect all communities, even if I don't agree with what they do. I'm not too partial to Microsoft's development languages and tools. But I don't go to ASP.Net blogs and bash them for caring about that. So before you pass any judgment to anything that doesn't share your sentiments, try to be in someone else's shoes for a second.

@Sikanrong - I've encountered so many pretentious people, probably since I started studying Computer Science in college, that I've grown to accept the fact that these sort of people exist in this world. I don't agree with these people, obviously, but I either tend to ignore their claims of 'greatness' or just avoid them altogether. And of all the blogs that exist in the blogosphere, it's pretty freaky that both Dave Thomas and Zed Shaw landed and commented on my post. I'm not trying to ruffle feathers, just trying to be objective and hear both sides of the story. Now if only Kevin Clark or Michael Koziarski popped in to leave some comments... ;)

@Juan: I guess Zed was saying that he actually wasn't threatened directly, but rather indirectly by the actions of others involved. Of course, that's his side of the story. I don't think the issue here was to destroy people's reputations or whatever. I don't think the guys Zed directly mentioned will suddenly lose their position inside the Rails community. If you make money off of Rails, that's cool. I'm doing the same too. That doesn't make us evil or anything. I guess my point of this post was that while Zed was pretty straight-forward with his rant, his words do need to carry some weight, due to his previous work with Rails. About the Pickaxe book, I wonder why no one had mentioned these points before. I bought this book because it was the de-facto Ruby book, with rave reviews all over the Internet. His points are valid, but I think it's a bit hypocritical that people are not ripping this book. Hopefully Dave will fix some of these issues in the future.

@dRÉc: Very funny... Although when I first bought the Pickaxe book a couple of years ago I immediately thought the same thing... Sorry Dave!

Wow, this little obscure blog is sure getting a lot of attention from some folks!

Zed, as I mentioned in my write-up, there are always two (and in some cases, even more) sides to any story. Dave gave his recollection above. I thank you for dropping by and giving yours too. I have no idea what really happened, as I obviously wasn't there. But whatever happened... well, it just happened, I guess. I certainly wouldn't want any type of "war of words" over this anywhere.

By the way, thanks for replying to the E-Mail I sent you. I appreciate it.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for leaving your comments on this matter. I was curious about this, since Zed vaguely mentioned this without a solid explanation as to why his fix wasn't immediately used. This makes it much more clearer. As I said, there's always two sides to any story, so I appreciate you leaving yours.

You being such an integral part of the Rails community, I'm sure you were taken a bit by surprise, much more than anyone of us, by that rant. I hope you're able to speak with Zed and air out these differences. Of course, he doesn't seem willing, but to each his own :)

Again, thanks for dropping by and leaving your comments.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that snippet. It does sound better having Capistrano take care of the spinner script rather than keeping it in the repository. I'm sure I'll find it very valuable when deploying my upcoming project. Thanks!

Hey Jo,

I think my boss knows my feelings about heading towards this direction, so no fears in him finding out about this! Right now, I'm currently doing what you said, updating my resume and looking elsewhere for greener pastures. In the rest of my blog, I've written about my other interests right now - Learning Ruby on Rails, trying to land a job in the U.S. where I can use Rails full-time, etc. So yeah, that's definitely where I'm headed. Like I said, I have no problems with Microsoft or their programming languages / frameworks, but it just isn't where I want to go in my career.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving those comments. That assures me that I'm doing the right thing!