![]() In Ruby, you can print to the console using puts “Hello World!”. Everything has a common ancestor–there’s a sort of oneness to it all. And, as it goes, anything that is a subclass of BasicObject has access to BasicObject’s methods. So both the integer, 1, and the nil object, nil, eventually inherit BasicObject. Low level thinking might sound like, “All the other classes are adding IntegerĪnd finally, 1. => BasicObject To better summarize some aspects of the approach I would be taking: Focus on the concepts-think biggerįor example, take the idea of inheritance. For the first time in my career, I was not just aware of what I was learning, but how I was learning. I set out to take a higher-level approach to the learning, and, throughout the process, remind myself to focus on the concepts, the bigger picture, and how the things I’m learning relate to my existing knowledge. The way in which I would approach the next 7 days was very intentional. The ApproachĪs I thought about the interview and what I was really being evaluated for, I started to form a strategy-a mind set. They were able to test me on some very important, yet hard to quantify skills, and I was able to represent myself in a way that I typically would have not been able to. But by including a learning process in the interview (i.e., learning Ruby on Rails), it gave me a chance to fully represent myself. Image by Vincent Déniel, on Twitter never felt represented by technical assessments, or interviews which follow silly methods (like the STAR method). And technical interviews, no matter the rigor, end up missing the point as well. Yet, as important as it may be, gauging someone’s ability to learn is difficult! You can’t fully understand an individual or the soft skills they might have from a simple résumé or cover letter. This ability to learn new technologies is fundamental to being a successful software engineer. But instead, they wanted to investigate a much more important skill-they wanted to watch me learn. However if that was all that they were looking for they could have just quizzed me-given me a competency test or something of the like. Of course, when the time came, I would have to demonstrate some degree of functional knowledge. I would learn, but not master, the technology, and they would take my greenness into account while assessing my knowledge.Īs such, I reasoned that I wasn’t really being tested on my knowledge of the Rails framework. The agreement was that I would learn a new technology, and they would judge me on how well I picked it up. Instead, it was a shared understanding between me and interviewers that I was bringing no preexisting knowledge of Rails. There was no dishonesty, and no nefarious behaviors. Maybe I had lied about my experience in order to get my foot in the door, and was now left scrambling. Maybe it was the result of some forgery or deceit. You may speculate on how I found myself in this situation. This meant that I had a 7 day crunch to learn the framework. Most of this exercise would involve working on a Ruby on Rails application. It was a Friday afternoon, and next Friday I would be taking part in a live coding exercise. The Interviewįirst things first-I was in the midst of an interview process. This blog post is about putting those ideas into practice-a case study. My last blog post was all about how to learn, and taking the best approach to learning. This was mentioned briefly in my previous blog post, but I wanted to take the time now to elaborate on this experience. I recently found myself in a situation where I had 7 days to learn Ruby on Rails. Also, this is not a tutorial, but rather a log of my experience learning Ruby on Rails.) ![]() (Note: this post builds off of my previous post, Learning to Learn, and references it a few times-however, this post should still make sense if you missed the first one.
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