So I had a discussion about this topic last week with the Adult Programs Manager from Canada Learning Code. I love Canada Learning Code, and have volunteered as a mentor and instructor with the organization since the Calgary chapter opened its doors, for the Ladies/Kids/Teachers Learning Code initiatives and briefly as a chapter lead myself, down in Lethbridge where I currently reside.
The Canada Learning Code programs do a great job introducing people to coding, and getting them excited about coding. This is CLC’s main focus, and I agree they should stick to it, since they do it so very well.
It does however leave a gap. The “next steps” after their introductory courses are left pretty much to the learners, beyond some recommended bootcamps for basic web development in the larger centers (Toronto and Vancouver). But not everyone lives in the major centers, nor do they necessarily have the money for a bootcamp. And not everyone wants to be a web developer.
Over the last couple years I’ve fielded a number of questions from my Ruby learners about their “next steps”, and I’ve gathered some resources to have on hand, so I don’t have to search for them every time.
These are resources for online learning I’ve collected for people who are just learning Ruby, but are not quite at the point where they could fully grasp the material in the courses at my WNDX School for creating mobile applications with RubyMotion.
Free
https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_ispmWmdjY
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-ruby
https://launchschool.com/books/ruby
Paid
https://learnrubythehardway.org
https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/ruby-fundamentals (10 day free trial)
https://pragmaticstudio.com/courses/ruby (I attended an advanced course from PragStudio 👍👍)
Since not everyone has access to a computer all the time, or can even install things on the computers they DO have access to, continuing learning on a mobile device or in a browser is an option, and there are a couple of online Ruby interpreters that you can use in a browser:
https://repl.it/languages/ruby
https://www.jdoodle.com/execute-ruby-online
I hope you find these resources helpful, and if you do, please share this post with others.
Today is International Women’s Day, and this year’s theme is #BalanceForBetter. I would love it if more women would join me for the Six Vital Steps from Idea to App Store webinar. It’s free and will provide a great introduction to the app development process in about an hour.
And then use the resources above to learn enough Ruby to come and build RubyMotion apps with me. My #BalanceForBetter is to foster the education of a group of more diverse women developers, who will be creating the apps of the future that we all use everyday.