Ruby Newbie!

[Osama Hussain]

Greetings to the Pakistani ruby/rails community!

I'm am an undergraduate student in Karachi, currently in my 4th semester studying computer science and IT.
Earlier this year i started reading blogs of well known developers like Joel Spolsky of fog creek and Martin Fowler reading on software development, i also read parts of dreaming in code.
I decided to look for a tool to do development for the web, looking for a way to development in the same way as bridges are built as stated in "dreaming in code" (like scaffolding in rails :P ).

In my search for a platform to start learning from, first I came across Java(.NET was never an option for me being open source/linux dude), i found it not much different from C/C++ (syntactically) and neither much fun, i kept coming across Ruby and Rails, i did some research on it and only read good things about it, i read some blog posts by people saying that rails couldn't scale up but since twitter ran on rails it seamed that scaling up was very possible.

So i started my journey to learn rails about 2-3 weeks ago by starting to follow a very good roadmap to learning rails. I went on to Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book
after starting with Why's poignanat guide to ruby i plan to read the Pickaxe if needed.

Well thats a lot about me! i hope this google group isnt dead yet? :o
Osama Hussain

p.s. i also intend to document my learning experience in a blog soon too!

[Ahmed Mubbashir Khan]

Thanks a lot mate for sharing your experience, I look forward to your blog :) 

Regards,
----------------------------------
Ahmed Mubbashir Khan
"I do not make Software, I make it better"

http://about.me/mubbashir

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[Usman Ahmed]

Great news indeed.

Good to see undergrads talking about and learning rails.

Rails is for highly opinionated people, and other web dev frameworks cant come close to rails when it comes to dev happiness.

my advice to you would be to look for a company in karachi which is working with rails, in Pakistan its a bit tough to find a company working in rails, and even tougher to find a "rails only shop", which would be ideal of course

so you should look for a company working with rails in khi, do your own thing for a few weeks and then try an internship somewhere.

dont waste your coming 4 semesters, you need to be standing somewhere when you grad.

--

[Osama Hussain]

Thank you, Mubbashir and Usman, for your encouragement and advice!

To be honest i'm happy that there is a ruby/rails community in Pakistan, albeit tiny :( .

I've been looking up on google for shops that deal with working in rails. Unless my lookup went too skimpy, "7vals" was the first one that came up on my radar (and the most impressive one too, you don't here many developers going for scrum based agility!), alas its situated in Lahore, next i came across another one claiming that they "use rails" but there entire projecct portfolio was just full of flash based projects, no mention of rails there. 

Next up i came across "Visualsofts" (yeah, the name is kinda strange) they claim that RoR is one of their choice of web development platforms besides php and asp.net, and there also based in Karachi, i will try contacting them myself soon. If any one here has any idea about visualsofts i would be glad to hear from you!

[Hasham]

There is also this group on:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/196391683740528/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Ruby-Developers-Pakistan-3945939?gid=3945939

You are welcome to join and post questions there as well

[Usman Ahmed]

tkxel is also working on rails, but no exclusively, sadly 

I have loads of work to do I'm into business development which is my passion, and I try to take out time to work with rails, its more of a hobby now

but Pakistan needs a "rails only shop", and talk about business? there IS loads of rails business to be captured

US topping rails fever, UK and Australia (and who do I know this, US-startup-rails fever is the most obvious thing out there, UK is following suit, I Alexa rankings for a very famous rails blog and I saw australia at number 3), that's from where rails business can be acquired

i'm for rails exclusive work, why? just like imran khan says, specialist is a specialist 

and we need to participate in rails community, and have to carry the philosophy behind it

investors are lining up to find rails resources in the third world but I guess they don't like to trust third world human resource as a whole, owing to the exponential growth in "software houses" in every street in Lahore and Isb, I'm not familiar with khi market though I expect similar

MWM ventures in Lahore is also working with rails, the owner someone from US (obvious)

so the whole idea is, a rails only shop, in Pakistan, with the best of rails from Pakistan, with a business model to match the brilliance of rails and the people.

that would be something really amazing, and I dream to represent that company at railsconf some day.

dreams. I know, but they all started off as dreams.

side note: spree (a rails ecommerce platform) raised 1.5 million USD

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/spree-raises-1-5-million-from-true-ventures-aol-for-open-source-ecommerce-platform/

I believe that Pakistani tech people have tons more potential than India or any east European or Russian outsourcing nation.

and a rails only shop and strong rails dev base in Pakistan can contribute a LOT to the economy in the long run.

[Osama Hussain]

I'll try my best to look up a in progress rails project out here in
Karachi and plug up my winter vacations with it. I read that
development is like a craft and like all people new to it I can have
huge advantages by having a mentor,well an *e-mentor* would be more
plausible for me (since i'm the only blip in karachi on http://www.rubyusergroups.org/
) , meanwhile i'll kick my ruby/rails learning into overdrive and
prepare a solid profile for the next *ruby summer of code*.

The idea of a shop specialized in rails would be an excellent future
dream, or should i say it should more of a *Goal*. I'll try my best to
create a buzz in the academic community with some decent projects on
rails ( as soon as i'm through most of the learning phase), in my
university the final year students had created a (very) simple app on
windows mobile (who even uses that platform?) and they had enough
attention from p@sha to bag em a big cash prize too, i think if a
group of rag-tag microsoft fanboys (/girls) can get p@sha's attention
then so can the rails community (my point is not to brag, but just
insist upon the fact that Usman's dream can be more then a dream, it
can be a goal)

I intent to back my words with my consistency in learning rails (real
fast) and proving to Pakistan that ruby/rails is a platform that can
not be overlooked.
I believe in what Chad Fowler wrote in the passionate programmer
( http://pragprog.com/book/cfcar2/the-passionate-programmer ), By
working on a platform not yet exploited enough we have a chance of
getting greater rewards.

On Oct 20, 6:59 pm, Usman Ahmed <osman.eh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> tkxel is also working on rails, but no exclusively, sadly
>
> I have loads of work to do I'm into business development which is my
> passion, and I try to take out time to work with rails, its more of a hobby
> now
>

> but Pakistan needs a "*rails only shop*", and talk about business? there IS

> loads of rails business to be captured
>
> US topping rails fever, UK and Australia (and who do I know this,
> US-startup-rails fever is the most obvious thing out there, UK is following
> suit, I Alexa rankings for a very famous rails blog and I saw australia at
> number 3), that's from where rails business can be acquired
>
> i'm for rails exclusive work, why? just like imran khan says, specialist is
> a specialist
>
> and we need to participate in rails community, and have to carry the
> philosophy behind it
>
> investors are lining up to find rails resources in the third world but I
> guess they don't like to trust third world human resource as a whole, owing
> to the exponential growth in "software houses" in every street in Lahore and
> Isb, I'm not familiar with khi market though I expect similar
>
> MWM ventures in Lahore is also working with rails, the owner someone from US
> (obvious)
>
> so the whole idea is, a rails only shop, in Pakistan, with the best of rails

> from Pakistan, with a *business model* to match the brilliance of rails and

> the people.
>
> that would be something really amazing, and I dream to represent that
> company at railsconf some day.
>
> dreams. I know, but they all started off as dreams.
>

> side note: spree (a rails ecommerce platform) raised 1.5 million USDhttp://techcrunch.com/2011/10/10/spree-raises-1-5-million-from-true-v...