“How much time does it take for a fresher to learn Ruby on Rails?” – The very

pertinent question was asked by Aninda Das in the Facebook group – Kolkata IT

Professionals. Comments from industry experts who have used the platform gave a

glimpse on the scenario.

“Ruby on Rails is an ever learning process. However, a hands-on training of around 15-

20 days should get one started. And it could take around 2-3 months to get honed in the

technology”, said Mukesh Agarwal to start the discussion rolling. “Couple of days if he

already knows programming”, Angsuman added a nod to this. In fact Ruby on Rails is

simple to learn and “programmer can get started in less than an hour and continue to

learn more by experimenting. 2 days is all that is required, many will take less” he

harped.

Rishav Rastogi putting some more light on this programming language said, “Rails

have a lot of underlying magic, standards and opinions which takes time to getting

used to”. Sharing his personal experience he further added, “I have seen a lot of people

write Ruby code in rails or otherwise as if they were writing Java or PHP”.

It is very important to check out “Rails Best Practices”. The techniques will help a

coder to clean up the codes and improve the quality of Rails applications. Sharing

further information on this Angsuman provided a link (http://railsforzombies.org/) to

follow which he said, “also covers a bunch of Rails 3 methods you may not have seen

before”.

Although Ruby on Rails might not be an absolutely easy language to explore but it’s

comparatively easier to get started into writing code for production. “It’s just the entry

barrier for RoR is lower compared to other technologies”, said Mukesh.

Arjun Ghosh, known for being a RoR specialist, joined the discussion sharing his

experience in the field. “Programming skill & logical thinking can't be learned in days!

A programmer keeps learning for his whole life or learns nothing after many years! All

depends on his/her choice & passion for programming!”

The engaging discussion was taken a level ahead by Aninda with two simple questions

through practical scenarios:

1. How easy is it for a developer to shift to RoR say for e.g. if he is coding in .net?

2. Another scenario - say a company X (SME) who has never worked on any RoR

projects suddenly gets a RoR project to work on. How easy will it be for the

existing developers (2 years max exp) to upgrade themselves? Can self study

help them?

Mukesh stated some relevant points that showed moving to RoR from other

technologies is not very difficult for experienced developers and can be picked up in 20

days time. “If your developers are smart enough, they can adapt to the new technology

in 10 days time”, he added. Agreeing to this Angsuman cited, “Lot will depend upon

the intellectual capacity of the developers .Net developers”.

The very engaging discussion gave us some key points on “How much time it can take

for a fresher to learn Ruby on Rails”:

Training of around 15-20 days should get one started

Following Rails Best Practices would help further

Programming skill & logical thinking would be an added advantage for the

beginners

Intellectual capacity to grab a new technology is the key factor

Post Submitted by: Sumana Chakraborty, Creative Writer & Blogger

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