I'd like to put myself up for adoption!.

Vincent Franco
Go Montessori
1757 Woodside Dr., Suite 201
Woodland, CA 95695
1.800.331.5147 (Toll-free from the US and Canada)
530.661.1968 (FAX)

Visit: www.montessorijobs.com


-----Original Message-----
From: SonOfLilit [mailto:sonoflilit / gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 1:55 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: Adopt-a-newbie? Based on actual experience.


Since I've been asked a lot, a few guidelines for mentors:

* When you receive an email asking if you're OK hooking up with a newbie,
you're just expected to wait until he asks something.
* It would be more advantageous, though, if you do send him an introductory
email and try and get to know him, his code and his purposes in learning
Ruby. From there you can spawn a discussion on the design of his code,
offering him better ways to do things.
* As important as it is to teach Ruby, it is important to teach both good
practices (from indentation through irb to testing) and how to find
information in the Ruby world (how to use documentation, when to ask on ml,
what's on rubyforge...)
* Don't just spill information. Wait for it to be exactly relevant.
* Think of this whole things like a discussion in a computer lab where the
programmer next to you asks you a question in a field you're better at...
The sort of discussion that also happens a lot at conferences.

Aur Saraf

if anyone has a good tip to add, feel free!