Shalom Elad
Elad M. wrote:
Hi,
I am currently looking to expand my ROR development team (too much work,
only 2 hands per developer 
).
The problem is, in Israel at least, that there are almost no ROR stated
developers to be found,
Well, you have to look carefully 
There’s no established Ruby users group in Israel, and generally most of
the developers are either Microserfs or PHP-heads. So the few who know
and use Ruby/Rails tend to be of the lone-wolf sort.
However, because of the higher entry barrier, those who actually make
the effort of finding out and keeping up to date with such cutting edge
technologies are generally pretty proficient.
i find myself in many cases explaining the
technology to people who come to interview that know PHP, ASP, .NET or
JAVA.
So i really would be happy to compile a profile for a beginner ROR
developer, meaning, i want to know what base knowledge does this person
need in order to be prepared for a ROR jump start.
I Already compiled a few Elements.
Critical:
HTML
JS
XHTML Standards (at least)
Database structure and rational
Needed:
Server side language
i’ll be happy to get more data…
I think the major, most important skill is experience programming in
dynamic languages. Obviously, the more similar to Ruby - the better, so
if you can find anyone with substantial Ruby experience - grab him
immediately. But there are several very similar languages. First of all
Python, which is very similar to Ruby, and is also dynamically and
strongly typed.
Perl is somewhat less ideal - it’s weakly typed, and despite the myth is
much less Rubyish than Python.
Generally, I think web experience is less important than the above
programming experience. I.E., if someone has lots of experience
developing large and complex applications in Ruby or Python, the shift
to Rails should be pretty smooth. After all, RoR itself is nothing but a
large and fairly complex Ruby application. Those who understand RoR best
are those who grok it as a large Ruby program. That requires a solid
understanding of e.g. OOP concepts rather than memorization of CSS2
techniques.
Also, there are languages with similar design streaks - like Smalltalk
(though I doubt you’d find many in Israel), Lisp, and particularly
Scheme (find people who really enjoyed “Extended Introduction to CS”
on the TAU CS program ;).
It’s always nice to talk to an Israeli Rubyist/Railer, so you’re welcome
to contact me at [email protected].
Regards,
-Alder
).