This month at work, we began learning a new programming language called Ruby. Ruby is a dynamic, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that was designed to balance functional programming with imperative programming. Ruby is well known for creating powerful web applications and web sites with a popular framework called Rails. I’m very excited about this new language since it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before, and I can’t wait to start using it in the real world.

In Feburary 1993, a man named Yukihiro Matsumoto conceived Ruby on the basis that he wanted to create a scripting language that was more powerful than Perl but more Object Oriented than Python. Version 1.0 was released in December of 1996, which sparked a lot of interest in Japan. The first English version of a Ruby programming book was released in September 2000, which raised even more interest in the language over a larger population. Ruby is now used all over the world, and is still being developed and supported. It is currently at version 3.2, while version 4.0 is in development as I write this blog.

Ruby is known for being used to design rich web applications in conjunction with a framework called Rails. This is where the term “Ruby on Rails” comes from. In a nutshell, Rails is a free library available for programmers that makes it easier to create web pages that gather information from users and interact with a database to store it. Normally, this would require a lot of code to make from scratch, but with Rails, the same amount of work can be done with much less code.

Since almost all of my programming experience is with strongly types languages like C++ and Java, I’m excited to learn this new style of coding. I have to get used to a new style that requires less typing and less effort so I feel like I’m going from a bicycle to a tricycle. Hopefully by next week I will have a sample web application to demonstrate some of the skills I’ve learned.

Over the weekend, Dr. Radney graded our first assignment and posted our marks. Yesterday, I received some messages and comments from other students about how they had received such a low grade. I read some other students’ blogs and profiles and I noticed some room for improvement. I don’t like to judge other students work, but I did well on the assignment so I thought I would share my thoughts on it.

1. Capture the reader’s attention

Your introduction should get the reader excited. The first thing I think when I see a big piece of writing is: “Oh great, this is going to be boring”. But if you can capture your readers curiosity with a unique thesis, they will be forced to read on because they will want to know what happens next.

2. Start early & Sleep on it

Every time I write something, I read it over, I think it looks great, I think I’m finished. Then I open it the next day and say to myself “How did I miss that?”. I think it’s very important for writers to write as soon as something comes into their mind. You can modify, restructure and reformat another time, just get it on paper (or screen). I also think sleeping on your writing is essential for a nice piece of work. Readers will know if you haven’t spent much time on your writing and chances are if you don’t care about what you’re writing, the reader won’t care either.

3. Share & Compare

It’s important that other people can understand what you’re writing the same way you understand it. I always hand my work off to some friends or family because other people can always identify areas of confusion, spelling mistakes, or punctuation errors that I might miss. Also, sometimes other people can re-phrase a sentence for clarity, making your whole assignment flow better. After having a few people proof read it, and you’ve followed the first 2 steps, I think it’s safe to say you’re going to automatically get at least a B.

After saying all of this, I would be happy to hear some constructive feedback on my blog or profile from other students. In return, I can give some feedback on yours and maybe we can all walk away with a good grade. Please feel free to contact me at bill@bill-tucker.com and visit my G+ profile: https://plus.google.com/115511860292912493730