Triangle.rb Notes - Establishing Yourself

Establishing Yourself: A gem/application-driven method of building experience

2014-07-08 by Nathan Walls (Meetup)

Why?

• avoid stagnation
• job or portfolio seeking
• keep skills fresh by working on things/problems not addressed by daily work

Portfolio

• writing is a good exercise to clarify thinking
• blogging helps build community awareness
• stand out - not many people write
• include at least two substantial posts in portfolio
• proofread

Code

• toy + learning
  • fizzbuzz
  • code kata
• project
  • avoid code that you don't have permission to share

Show some code in portfolio, but not all code ever written.

When?

• Start writing now, iterate and refine before it is needed
  • key promotion opportunity
  • end of year reviews
  • job opportunity at dream company

Treat portfolio as a personal kanban project. Work on it whenever is convenient.

Getting Started With A Gem

Sample gem (work in progress)

Files

• README.md
• super_gem.gemspec
• Gemfile
• Gemfile.lock (should not be committed for gems, only for applications)
• lib/super_gem.rb
• lib/super_gem/version.rb
• tests

Documentation

• YARD or RDoc
• README.md

Gotchas

• Gemfile versus super_gem.gemspec
• Gemfile is for development dependencies
• *.gemspec is for end-user dependencies

Code Hosts

• Github
• Bitbucket
• GitLab (self-hosted)