[dba-Tech] Ruby on Rails

Hello Arthur,
Your lucky to be in an area where you can speak Chinese on a daily basis.  I
think that it is almost impossible to learn a language unless you are
exposed to it.

If you have a chance to visit China at some stage you should try it.  I have
been five times and it is a wonderful place.  The people are great, the
environment feels safe and the food is the best in the world.

I love China.  It can be intense, and even lonely, but it is always pure
China.

You can visit China without the need to go with a tour, and you do not need
to stay in expensive hotels designed for westerners.  I think once you go
there, you are likely to return regularly.

Good luck with your language training,

Mark


2009/9/19 Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>

> I wouldn't have any clue about this sort of mix-and-match approach. I did
> notice something within the NetBeans IDE (Ruby Project) that suggests that
> you can mix-and-match but I haven't made it far enough up the learning
> curve
> to be confident of trying this.
> Back in our old days (Artful.Lib), as you recall, we had opinionated ideas
> about directory structures etc. We didn't go nearly as far as RoR does in
> embracing the convention-over-configuration premise, but we were on the
> right track -- lazy is best: obey some conventions to reap maximum benefit.
>
> I've just finished installing the Ruby/JRuby plugin for NetBeans and am
> going to spend half this weekend experimenting. (The other half will be
> devoted to designing Version 2 of an inherited app that is sorely in need
> of
> a normalization redesign.)
>
> For a semi-retired hobbyist, I sure seem busy (at least to me). "I tried to
> get out, but they kept dragging me back in." c.f. Godfather LOL. Every step
> of the way, it gets more complex. When you and I started with computing,
> learning CP/M and dBASE II and WordStar, I thought then that careers in
> this
> business were done -- it was already simple enough that anyone could be her
> own MayTag repairPerson. Turns out I was woefully wrong. Which, if I still
> wanted a career in this business, might be regarded as a godsend. However,
> I
> am not really that interested any more in a career in this business, and am
> increasingly happy with my semi-retired status. Now I can concentrate on
> such things as Genetic Algorithms, learning Mandarin, completing my
> tabla-solo-generator, and taking the teleological approach to the chess
> problem (as opposed to the brute-force Deep Blue approach -- in this case I
> have a feeling that I'm right, and that Deep Blue is all wrong, but I'm one
> old guy competing with a huge corporation with pockets deeper than the
> Grand
> Canyon).
>
> I have a current arrangement with a married couple in this complex: a
> one-hour lesson per day in language skills. The couple of interest consists
> of a husband who speaks Cantonese and a wife who speaks Mandarin, both of
> whom want to improve their English skills. We have decided that it's best
> for me to learn Mandarin first, and once I have the four tones down pat,
> then we can expand to the seven Cantonese tones. So far I cannot say very
> much: I can say Good Morning and Good Afternoon; I can count, I can list
> the
> days of the week and the months of the year and I can pretty quickly
> determine whether one of the dwellers in my complex speaks Cantonese or
> Mandarin. Inch by inch. It helps to have a lesson per day -- it really
> helps!
>
> There are fundamental differences between Chinese (meaning
> Cantonese+Mandarin) and English. One huge difference is that in Chinese
> there is no "cast" of a verb. Whether you mean past, present or future, the
> verb remains the same, and whether you mean Person (singular,
> single-plural,
> etc.) the verb itself doesn't change, only its prefix. Similarly for tense.
> It's all implied by context and a prefix or suffix here or there.
>
> Half of my last lesson (this is a two-way street) I devoted to the concept
> of tense. I know my way around English fairly well, but I decided that
> given
> the differences I would stop at Past, Present, Future and Conditional.
> Later
> for Conditional Past PluPerfect and so on. (Back when I was a kid, we
> studied Latin and French as well as English, and had word-games with tense,
> making up sentences  in the most complex tenses, such as "He would have
> been
> being ..." I guess that's why I never became a soccer star.
>
> The complex I'm living in now is occupied by approximately 80% people of
> Chinese origin, the majority of whom can speak English barely if at all.
> But
> I can pretty quickly detect whether they speak Cantonese (the majority) or
> Mandarin (maybe 20% max), and in the halls or the elevators I listen for a
> moment and then say either Nihau or JoSan, assuming it's morning, or other
> variants for later in the day (equivalent to the Spanish Buenas Diaz,
> Buenas
> Tardes, Buenas Noches).
>
> A really interesting thing happened recently. My Chinese tutor-couple and I
> meet daily in the rooftop greenhouse, which has tables and chairs and a
> sunroof and loads of plants, and we were doing our lessons, when another
> elderly Mandarin-speaking woman entered to water her plants, and saw us
> learning our lessons. At the time she said nothing, not wanting to
> interrupt; she watered her plants and left. Next morning I entered the
> elevator and there she was, and seeing me she positively beamed with
> pleasure, and said "Your Mandarin is Very Good!" (clearly a flattering lie,
> but one delivered with encouragement and even a thumbs-up).
>
> I think that this is more a statement about the English-speaking
> Torontonians in this neighbourhood than it is about me. I can't yet speak
> anything significant, much less deliver a comment about what I recently
> thought or dreamt or experienced. But it would appear that my meager
> attempts to learn Chinese are met with pleasure and resounding
> encouragement. I am guessing that these people are used to being excluded
> and therefore tend to be insular, and that my attempts to enter their world
> are surprising -- judging by the look on that woman's face when we shared
> an
> elevator and she gave me the Two Thumbs Up.
>
> So I guess this can be considered an experiment to discover whether you can
> teach an old dog a new trick. At the rate we're progressing, I think that
> within a year of daily lessons, I will be able to bargain in Chinatown LOL.
>
> Arthur
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