In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.reddit.com/user/wclittle) discuss both a Reddit conversation I posted recently about Low-Code/No-Code vs. ChatGPT-assisted code-from-scratch, and an overview of the curriculum we’re planning to walk through in our Product and Code cohort (learn more and apply here: https://forms.gle/dtVA1bQ9xATRrPW29). I talk about Rails vs. Bubble, learning with LLMs, and a wide range of web developer topics - from installing necessary software on your computer to caching strategies - that anyone needs to know in order to become a proficient engineer for the modern web.

You can watch this episode below or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts (search for “Ventures”).

0:06 - Tee-up for the conversation, teaching product and code (Learn more and apply here → https://forms.gle/dtVA1bQ9xATRrPW29)

0:20 - Low-code/no-code vs. build from scratch w/ ChatGPT – https://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/zv2xdx/reflections_since_my_rails_journey_began_in_2005/ // Episode w/ Josh from Bubble → https://satchel.works/@wclittle/ventures-episode-63 

2:50 -  Product and Code cohort → https://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/zyjiq0/what_is_the_best_way_to_teach_ruby_on_rails/ // Apply: https://forms.gle/dtVA1bQ9xATRrPW29 

4:36 - Curriculum overview walk-through:

• Know your computer/OS well enough to install and run Ruby/Rails/Postgres/Redis/etc... locally (e.g. w/ Homebrew for MacOS)
• Shell / command line
• IDE (VSC, Rubymine, etc..)
• Git / Github (PR & code review etiquette and such)
• Linting / Prettier
• CI / CD
• Basic DevOps w/ a cloud provider (like AWS + Relay or Heroku)
• Monitoring (Sentry/Scout/etc..)
• Ruby
• Core HTML / CSS / JavaScript things of course
• Core Rails things (routing, controllers, models, views, etc...)
• Testing w/ Rspec
• Stimulus
• ViewComponent
• Turbo
• A go-to CSS framework (I'm suggesting new devs quickly learn enough CSS to jump into Tailwind vs. Bootstrap these days, but ideally both and knowledge of BEM/SMACSS/OSS/ACSS)
• Docker
• Caching
• How to best look up things w/ Google and ChatGPT (and others?) when you are stuck