Noob Gains

"You're in a time that's changing probably more rapidly than it ever has. There are times when you spend a week implementing something, just to realize that it's already considered cliche and bad practice at the end of that week. 

Web Dev is a very trendy end of the Software Industry, so don't spend too much time and get too specialized in anything that's not a standard. HTML5, CSS3, Javascript are all w3c standards.

jQuery is not a standard, but it's used pretty much everywhere. But since it's not a w3c standard, if something insanely better comes out tomorrow, then the world will start switching to that and away from jQuery. Same thing for any server-side language: Ruby, Scala, Java, etc. PHP is on pretty much every server and that's mostly why it's so popular. Most developers would rather not use PHP if they can help it. It gets very messy when you start getting into large projects. But if you want to build something that can be run by pretty much anyone anywhere, you build it in PHP. (like Wordpress or Drupal)

Don't take me the wrong way though, any of these languages are good to learn. Just keep your eye on other things and learn more than 1. Don't get to the point where you can only program in Ruby and nothing else or you can only program in PHP and can't comprehend how a pre-compiled server-side language like Java can possibly work. The point is, learn to program, don't just learn how to use a language."

From:

Code With Impunity

1. Create immunity necklace:

  git branch 'you_can_break_this'

2. Wear necklace:

  git checkout 'you_can_break_this'

3. Prove it is working:

  git branch

4. Keep the necklace:

  git checkout master   git merge 'you_can_break_this'

5. Destroy the necklace: 

First steps in Git

One of the very first things you might do in Git is save files. 

First we add them to the staging area with "git add ."

Then we commit them to version control with "git commit -m "put your notes here" 

You can do it without the -m message, but you'll then need to add your notes in the git editor. 

You can also add specific folders by typing "git add directory/"

2. Differences

Type "git diff" to see any discrepancies in your current files. If you've already added them to the staging area, you can see the differences in staged files by typing "diff --staged". 

3. What if you want to get something off the stage? 

You type "git reset HEAD filename" and the stage will be rolled back.

If you make a mistake or forget something, you can pull your changes off version control and back onto the stage by typing "git reset --soft HEAD^"

4. What if you want to add or update individual files?

You type "git commit --amend -m "Your new updates" 

5. Sharing with others

To connect to a remote repo, you need to set a bookmark for it. 

So you type "git remote add origin url"

To add your local files to the remote repo, you type "git push -u origin master" 

Lastly, don't run the reset HEAD commands after you've pushed. It's like changing the past, and as we know from sci-fi, that can leads to problems. 

6. Cloning, branching, checking out, merging. 

To clone a repo, type "git clone url". 

To make changes to the repo, "git branch mychanges"

Then work on that repo by typing "git checkout mychanges"

Here's the list of commands to remember:

close -- Closes the file. Like File->Save.. in your editor.

read -- Reads the contents of the file, you can assign the result to a variable.

readline -- Reads just one line of a text file.

truncate -- Empties the file, watch out if you care about the file.

Starting the 50 short exercises in this book: 

http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/book/

So far it's a nice continuation from codeschool and codeacademy. Explains things in a different way but also a beginner level. 

Why do some methods accept a block and others don't? It's because methods that accept blocks have a way of transferring control from the calling method to the block and back again. We can build this into the methods we define by using the yield keyword.

Code:

def block_test   puts "We're in the method!"   puts "Yielding to the block..."   yield   puts "We're back in the method!" end block_test { puts ">>> We're in the block!" }

Output: