Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
Twitter makes some strange things possible. Earlier today, I sent a message to Joanna Geary having heard rumours she, like me, was attempting to learn some basic (in my case, very basic) coding.
Within a few minutes, coding over a beer was suggested. Within five more, we had a dozen potential takers. And a good few programmers offering their expertise.
So what the heck? Let’s give it a go.
We’re going to try to learn Ruby. This is because it’s meant to be fairly learn-able (we’ll see…), but also because it’s handy for all the kind of web apps journos might want: quick and messy data-driven projects, scraping, searches, and the like.
So, the plan is to find a pub with wifi (and beer), bring laptops, a few tutorials, and make a start. If it goes well, we’ll try to do it once a month or so and learn some stuff. If we’re lucky, someone might even do a 10-15 minute introduction (any volunteers?).
We’re suggesting meeting at 7pm on Wednesday 31st March. The (unconfirmed) venue is The Regent, a mere stone’s throw from Angel station. Bring your own laptop!
Hopefully, it’ll all be great. For anyone feeling keen, here’s a nice basic guide to installing Ruby and here’s a crazy-and-offbeat introduction/guide to it.
I’d love to get an idea of numbers so if you fancy coming along, please chuck me an email (james@jamesrb.co.uk) or send me an @ message on twitter (this is me).
Provided we find a free venue (which is looking good), it’ll be free of charge. Win.
Hope to see some of you there!
