Panel: Charles Max Wood

Guest: Paweł Dąbrowski

This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Paweł Dąbrowski who is a coder and author who resides in Poland. He is a blogger and writes about the Ruby language, Ruby on Rails, and related technologies. To read more about Paweł, please visit his ABOUT ME via his blog. Today, Chuck and Paweł talk about Ruby, Paweł’s background, and much more! Check it out.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

0:00 – Get A Coder Job!

0:55 – Chuck: This week I am talking with Paweł Dąbrowski who was on episode 366. Give us a brief description of who you are, please.

1:25 – Guest: I run a company and I am here b/c of the article I wrote. It was a nice introduction to...programming. I write in my blog and have written a few gems. I created a course how to build Ruby Flow. Also, I create Ruby code every day. I think that’s it.

2:19 – Chuck: I am curious, how did you get into programming?

2:30 – Guest: It all started in school when he asked me to create a website using HTML code. I fell in-love with it.

I didn’t want to give up and figured it all boils down to: “how bad do you want it?”

4:33 – Chuck: Yeah it was PHP for me, too. I could do dynamic things with this. I was a computer science major, and to build something REAL was amazing.

5:04 – Guest: Yes, when something works it’s amazing. 

5:25 – Chuck: Yeah, when you realize you left out a semi-colon – oh no! In some ways, PHP was a friendly-way to do web development. 

6:05 – Guest.

6:22 – Chuck: How old were you when you got paid for web development?

6:32 – Guest: I think I was sixteen years old and $50.00 was a fortune for me. I felt like a millionaire. It felt great to make money for something you love to do. It wasn’t work; I just enjoyed doing it.

7:07 – Chuck: That’s the magic!

7:14 – Guest: If you are doing something you love, then it’s great!

7:24 – Chuck: How did you go from PHP to one-page apps to Ruby?

7:35 – Guest: I didn’t like PHP at some point. I fell in-love with Ruby’s syntax. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to find a job. I wrote a programmer and told him that I have “no experience and no technical training...” I didn’t think it was possible, and he said that it was possible based on the work that I put in. I remember writing code in Ruby.

9:42 – Chuck: What drew you to Ruby?

9:48 – Guest: The community and the syntax. I love writing in Ruby, and I don’t know if I will switch my languages in the future. I want to create a more active Ruby community in Poland. I want to get junior developers involved.

10:29 – Chuck: Tell us about your blog!

10:40 – Guest: I started writing every day. I started in January and kept going for three months. I thought that was crazy, and so I wrote less frequently. I thought it was a game-changing decision for me b/c it took me to a new level. I wrote more, learned more, and it has given me visibility.

11:47 – Chuck: I have talked to people in various parts of the world. People say that it could be a barrier of only English-written blogs.

12:15 – Guest: I learned English once I got serious about coding/programming. I think it’s a disadvantage if you don’t know English.

12:35 – Chuck: What are you working on now?

12:40 – Guest: I am starting this project and decided to turn-it-up b/c at first it was experimental. I wanted to move people more in the Polish community. I write about soft skills and that developers should have those skills, too.

13:22 – Chuck: This episode won’t come out for a few months. If you want to plug that – you can if you are comfortable with it.

13:44 – Guest: I want to set-up interviews, and create a dictionary so people can check single words and their meaning and see what it looks like in another language. Also, working on the content of blogs, and maybe recording a video on HOW to code. I was involved in a webinar and starting my first conference. Give the

14:56 – Chuck: Where can people find you? How about your blog?

15:05 – Guest: Twitter! GitHub! Blog! LinkedIn!

15:27 – Chuck: Any recommendations for people who are getting into programming?

15:42 – Guest answers the question.

Guest: DOING and creating the stuff, and ultimately getting the experience. You can eventually find your dream job!

16:30 – Picks!

16:35 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!

END – CacheFly

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Paweł

Chuck