Guys,
What is http://start.clickuni.com developed in?
Also, what path do you suggest for me to start learning AJAX and Ruby?
Do you suggest I independently learn JavaScript, XML and CSS and hit
AJAX and then Ruby? I’m already familiar with some ruby.
Any sources, info, tips… asbolutely anything at all would be very
welcome.
wannaberor wrote:
Guys,
What is http://start.clickuni.com developed in?
http://start.clickuni.com/support/feedback might be the best place to
ask this question
It depends on what you want to do.
But here goes,
The big hint though: to really make use of AJAX you need to
understand the DOM and that each browser has a slightly different
implementation (well this is true of so many things!) AJAX is
basically simple, but there is a lot to learn to get there. The
question is, is the reward worth the effort? In the end you may find
that it is just a really difficult way to make a Flash page… (now I
duck for cover…)
John, thanks for your words.
Reckon this is possible in about 2/3 months with loads of daily
dedication?
On 4/6/07, wannaberor [email protected] wrote:
Guys,
What is http://start.clickuni.com developed in?
This has been answered nicelyAlso, what path do you suggest for me to start learning AJAX and Ruby?
Depends a lot on your background, are you interested in Ruby only or
in Rails too as the context of your question might suggest, do you
have programming experience, you really should search the list for
that kind of answers.Do you suggest I independently learn JavaScript, XML and CSS and hit
AJAX and then Ruby? I’m already familiar with some ruby.
For what my opionin is worth learn Ruby first, it is a great language
to start with.
Any sources, info, tips… asbolutely anything at all would be very
welcome.
Really just search the list if you have any problems with that, ask
again…
–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Cheers
Robert
2/3 months you can learn a lot, but I have to agree, mastery it won’t
be, young Jedi!
Just have the realistic expectations that there will be parts that
bog down or that frustrate or confuse.
You can cover a lot of material in 3 months, but only so much in one
day. As you learn this stuff you need to use it to make stuff, that’s
where the real learning and retention of knowledge happens. Start
with some web sites. Spend money on books too. Take a break when you
get burned out. XHTML + CSS and Ruby and maybe a database at the same
time. That’s probably more than enough to learn for 3 months.
Databases have a slower learning curve sometimes, because you can’t
skip the theory part and it is always troublesome if your design is
flawed (many of them will be).
Here’s a list of books I’d recommend:
Bulletproof Web Design
CSS Mastery
Professional CSS
(none of these covers IE7 because it is too recent, but these are
actually very good)
Learning MySQL
MySQL phrasebook
Beginning Ruby from Novice to Professional
Ruby Cookbook
Programming Ruby (the pickaxe)
Teach Yourself Javascript in 24 hours, 4th ed. (they never mean that,
think of it as 24 chapters)
Javascript phrasebook
If you’re planning to use AJAX and Ruby for web sites, you might as
well consider learning Rails as well, but after you’ve tackled some
of the other stuff.
Peter Slider wrote:
John, thanks for your words.
Reckon this is possible in about 2/3 months with loads of daily
dedication?
The basics: Most likely, depending on your learning abilities.
Mastery: Not.
But don’t be discouraged by this: Once you know the basics, you can do a
lot already. Mastery, though, takes longer. It usually means that you
know all your areas of expertise in and out, but doesn’t describe your
abilities to do the job at hand. And comes only with practice and
actually writing code in this area.
You probably should at databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle[0]) to your
“things to learn” list, too.
[0] you can get a free as in beer variant of Oracle 10g from oracle’s
website, called Oracle XE:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html
–
Phillip “CynicalRyan” Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/
Rule of Open-Source Programming #7:
Release early, release often. Clean compilation is optional.
While Rails does let you skip most of the JavaScript and SQL work,
you can’t do it forever.
To really understand what you’re doing you should learn a little bit
of it. You don’t have to be an expert at it to use it, but you would
be doing yourself a disservice by avoiding those topics. SQL more so
than JS. JS is pretty easy if you’ve done any C / PHP / Perl type of
programming.
Sounds like Rails would be good for getting you started on some of
this stuff. With rails you can avoid SQL and Javascript directly,
since you can use the scriptaculous AJAX library in ruby (with rails).
But as has been noted several times, you probably won’t be good at
this stuff in 2-3 months. You probably won’t even be good at even
one of these things in 2-3 months. Experience is the best
trainer. So just start building something in rails after you have
gone through a short tutorial.
Scott
On Apr 7, 2007, at 4:27 AM, John J. wrote:
While Rails does let you skip most of the JavaScript and SQL work,
you can’t do it forever.
To really understand what you’re doing you should learn a little
bit of it. You don’t have to be an expert at it to use it, but you
would be doing yourself a disservice by avoiding those topics. SQL
more so than JS. JS is pretty easy if you’ve done any C / PHP /
Perl type of programming.
On Apr 7, 2007, at 12:37 PM, Scott T. wrote:
I think “a little bit of it”, at least for sql, would be some theory
on normalization of databases and foreign keys. Or put another way,
keep DRY in your databases as well as your code.
Scott
John J. wrote:
While Rails does let you skip most of the JavaScript and SQL work, you
can’t do it forever.
To really understand what you’re doing you should learn a little bit of
it. You don’t have to be an expert at it to use it, but you would be
doing yourself a disservice by avoiding those topics. SQL more so than
JS. JS is pretty easy if you’ve done any C / PHP / Perl type of
programming.
Well, it takes a bit pressure off one’s learning, that’s for sure. It’s
best to tackle areas of knowledge one at a time. The trick is to find
out which area can come afterwards. And IMHO, while important, SQL and
database management and data modeling theory can take a backseat,
especially given ActiveRecord or DBI.
Of course, this turns around if you are going to work a lot with
databases that go beyond web-applications (which have, comparatively,
rather simple structures).
I agree those, grabbing SQLite[0] and the respective Ruby gem can only
help (no need to wrestle with MySQL or Oracle at this point).
–
Phillip “CynicalRyan” Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/
Rule of Open-Source Programming #34:
Every successful project will eventually spawn a sub-project
On 4/7/07, Phillip G. [email protected] wrote:
best to tackle areas of knowledge one at a time. The trick is to find
out which area can come afterwards. And IMHO, while important, SQL and
database management and data modeling theory can take a backseat,
especially given ActiveRecord or DBI.
I agree. Getting some familiarity with Rails isn’t a bad way to get a
breadth first introduction to what the OP is looking for without
getting bogged down with details.
I’d recommend that he get himself a copy of the 2nd ed of Active Web
Development with Rails, and work through it.
He’ll get enough introduction to the concepts of Ruby, AJAX, and SQL
to know what to start looking for in more depth.
The prototype library which Rails uses to do AJAX does a fairly good
job of hiding the nasty differences between browsers, and the
descriptions in AWDWR have enough about the issues to provide a hook
for further learning.
And eventually digging in to the source code to try to figure out HOW
Rails and ActiveRecord and their friends are doing their magic will
provide a good ‘textbook’ for further study.
–
Rick DeNatale
My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
On Apr 6, 1:25 pm, John J. [email protected]
wrote:
It depends on what you want to do.
But here goes,
- You can learn Ruby and at the same time learn XHTML + CSS
Hmmm. Okay. Personally, I’d put learning XHTML, CSS with learning
Javascript and DOM. Ruby is a mind twister and should be taken in it’s
own time IMHO.
- Before concerning too much about AJAX you’ll need to learn some
JavaScript and DOM scripting as well, but while learning that, you
need an understanding of how web sites really work: how pages are
requested, served and then handled by user-agents (browsers).
Don’t worry, none of it is all that difficult, it’s just a lot to
learn at once!
Yes.
- After you feel comfortable with XHTML and CSS, and perhaps a
little bit about XML, take a look at AJAX and if you haven’t, XML too.
AJAX itself is not complicated. The fancier things are not simple,
though. But at this point, the skills you learn in Ruby and in XHTML
- CSS (actually XML!) and a bit of DOM scripting (JavaScript) things
start to converge with AJAX (and things like REST, SOAP)
But if you go to all this effort, you should go ahead and learn some
SQL of some sort too, because most of this stuff ends up going into
or out of a database. So add MySQL or PostgreSQL or SQLite to the mix!
Yes, this too.
The big hint though: to really make use of AJAX you need to
understand the DOM and that each browser has a slightly different
implementation (well this is true of so many things!) AJAX is
basically simple, but there is a lot to learn to get there. The
question is, is the reward worth the effort? In the end you may find
that it is just a really difficult way to make a Flash page… (now I
duck for cover…)
To make a Flash page behave like an Ajax page you will need to:
And when you are done with these things you will have a nice Flash
movie that is fast and slick and is completely isolated from the
browser’s DOM. Some consider this a good thing but I think it’s very
limiting at this time. So no, Ajax is more a difficult way to make an
even more difficult Flash page. But Flash does enable one to keep a
connection from flash objects to a flash server open so that you can
push data periodically to the page. This goes a step beyond Ajax and
is only barely implementable with an HttpRequest object and an Apache
server.
Bob
SonOfLilit wrote:
Check out http://RubyMentor.rubyforge.org !
Aur S.
You beat me to it! 
Of course, I am catching up on the Ruby list as I’m way behind since
I’ve started working. I started a job here (not moving downstate) about
a month ago and I’ve gotten way behind on my Ruby pursuits. 
I probably should be working on stuff, but I’m wading through the lists
on and off for the past couple of hours.
–
Samantha
“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all
things are at risk.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
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