Coursera Rails Module 2 Notes
Intro to Ruby
This module goes through a general introduction to Ruby. One thing that I find interesting is how optimistic Ruby is, in the sense that everything except forfalse and nil is true. This is especially interesting from the perspective of comparing true and false in sqlite where sqlite stores 0 as false and 1 as true. I have not had to deal with this yet, but it is nice to keep in mind going forward. Another nice thing that I have not used that much is irb this is basically a Ruby repl that allows you to quickly test out concepts in your shell. I also love (since I work at a CI company) that the very first lesson about ruby talks about rspec and even has us use it go grade our assignments. It is never too early to start thinking about tests.Tour of Ruby Data Types
The next module took a nice tour of Ruby data types. I learned some pretty neat things.- Strings in Ruby super expressive, string interpolation is pretty amazing and very clean. Destructive Methods Have
!, I like this convention, you see it a lot in Clojure. - %w can make multiple strings into an array (like using .split() in JS)
- You can get a random element from an array with
.sample, pretty neat - Hash Order is maintained, this is really powerful
Object Oriented Ruby
- All methods public by default
- Clean class creation with useful helper methods for getter/setter
- Talked about how most of the functionality in Collections comes from using the Enumerator mix-in, gave an example of how to use it, super powerful!
Unit Testing
Again, I love that this course started right off the bat talking about unit testing. A+ to the course creators for covering this topic. The instructor did a good job talking about the differences between Test::Unit, MiniTest, and RSpec with great examples of how to use all of them.Assignment
The final assignment for this module was to write a program that reads a file and calculates word frequency. Overall it was pretty simple, I think the material did a good job preparing us for the task, and caused us to use a lot of the different tools that we learned about Ruby.Parting Thoughts
I have often heard that Ruby was designed for developer happiness. I really love the clean syntax, well documented API, and elegance. The next module will be a deep dive into Rails, looking forward to using more of the stuff that I have learned in this Ruby crash course.Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
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Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- The social contract of writing from jola.dev
- My Running Tips from Kevin Bell's Blog
- tweet from Derek Sivers blog
- Rewrote my blog with Zine from Drew DeVault's blog
- A eulogy for Vim from Drew DeVault's blog
- Pluralistic: AI "journalists" prove that media bosses don't give a shit (11 Mar 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Offline 23 hours a day from Derek Sivers blog
- Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
“Big, fast, careless swipes”
In game development, there is this strange effect known as “tunneling.” It happens when you do collision detection. Imagine a simple situation where every time you move a cube, you also test whether it touches the wall – and if it does, you make it bounce...
via Unsung June 12, 2026Pluralistic: Google's new remote attestation scheme is every bit as terrible as its old remote attestation scheme (12 Jun 2026)
Today's links Google's new remote attestation scheme is every bit as terrible as its old remote attestation scheme: Not even a QR code can produce a kissable pig. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Arrested at Toronto G20; Rule by...
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow June 12, 2026Second Circuit rejects Sam Bankman-Fried’s appeal
The Second Circuit upholds Bankman-Fried’s conviction and 25-year sentence, leaving few remaining options for the disgraced crypto executive
via Citation Needed June 12, 2026Generated by openring