Reflections on Leading Obtiva's second Rails/TDD Course

Today was the last day of the second run of the Ruby on Rails TDD Boot Camp. It was an excellent week spent with a comfortably-sized group of strong developers from diverse backgrounds ... some with many years of web development experience, some with none, some with Ruby expertise, some with none. One difference from our first course was that, at least from my perspective, this group gelled. I attribute this difference mostly to my nervousness, and subsequent hurried delivery, in our first course. The second time around I was able to pace things better which had a calming effect on me, and I predict this will continue to improve.

My most noteworthy lesson from this course should serve as a warning for anyone considering taking this course in the future:

We are teaching people Ruby and Rails and Ajax in the context of Test-Driven Development We build a Rails project from scratch via TDD The first two days are spent on introductory Ruby and Rails material The diversity of people coming to us for training means that we won't be able to work at the right level for everyone in the room, but after seeing some experienced Rails developers in my last two classes somewhat frustrated by the introductory material, I wanted to provide a warning for the future. When in doubt, read the course description.