I’ve just passed the certification exam from Ruby Association. I’m not allowed to talk much about the test itself, but I leave my warning here: be prepared.
Copyright (C) 2008 Ruby Association LLC
I was surprised, when I found it wasn’t an easy exam. I haven’t studied anything, as I’m working with Ruby everyday. But I should. Unfortunately, the test requires you to memorize many methods from core classes.
Learn the Core API, mainly the Array, Hash, String, Fixnum, Float, Object, Kernel, Time and File classes. Study until you memorize their methods. There are many questions about Hashes, Strings and Arrays. Caution with methods that modify the objects itself and methods that don’t (mutable vs immutable).
Also, be sure that you have a good understanding of Ruby Regular Expressions.
It would be great if the certification had more questions about OO in Ruby, Strings vs Symbols, less API memorization, blocks being the functional guys, operator overloading, modules as mixins, Test::Unit, threads, duck typing, dynamic typing, …
I haven’t seen any question about polymorphism! Shame.
Just to be clear, I don’t care that much for certifications. There are many people discussing if certifications are good or not (at least here in Brazil). I won’t discuss it here. My decision to be certified was made, because I teach Ruby classes and, at least here in Brazil, certifications are important to instructors.
Great job!
Congratulations!!!
nice
Happiness!!!
Fabio,
Congratulations on your Ruby certification. I am a Ruby enthusiast in the U.S. and am considering studying for the Ruby certification exam myself. I sent an email to the Ruby Association asking for recommendations on study guides or whether there were any practice exams but I haven’t gotten a response yet. Did you do any preparation for the exam yourself? If so, please describe it.
–Mario
@Mario
Thanks! I haven’t prepared myself for the exam, but as I’m saying in the post, I should.
Parabens Fabio.
Abracos
parabéns pelo certificado!
estive na sua palestra no Rails Summit. muito foda sua palestra. Pena q o tempo acabou rápido (te expulsaram hauhahuuah)
vc acabou com o Java
hehe
public static void main(String[] args) só uma vez na app
vc disse q Java não é a melhor para tudo, vc poderia falar em que Java é melhor (pelo menos 1 exemplo)?
vc prefere q uma linguagem possua tipagem ou não?
só mais uma coisa. tem como você disponibilizar sua apresentação em algum site?
muito obrigado
(@all: sorry for the pt-br comment!)
@Leandro
Espero que eu tenha “acabado” com o Java apenas como linguagem, hehehe.
Eu tenho gostado bastante de usar Java para escrever partes do software que formariam a tal “base sólida”, já que ferramentas e compilador costumam fazer um pouco de diferença aqui. Ou até em pontos onde a performance é extremamente necessária, neste nível.
Quanto a tipagem, tanto Java quanto Ruby, Python e Javascript possuem tipagem. Talvez a sua pergunta devesse ser reescrita como “Você prefere que uma linguagem tenha tipagem _explícita_ ou não?”
Bom, a resposta é um pouco frustrante (eu sei), mas depende. É um assunto que pode ser discutido por horas e horas, mas cada tipo de tipagem (explícita/implícita, forte/fraca, estática/dinâmica) costuma ter a suas vantagens e desvantagens. Sempre depende do uso e de cada caso.
A palestra está disponível no blog da Caelum: http://blog.caelum.com.br/2008/10/21/jruby-on-rails-no-rails-summit-latin-america/
valeu pela resposta
quanto a tipagem ficou vago, mas estava me referindo a ser explícita e principalmente estática.
vlw
Hi,
How much time available to do the exam?
@Marcelo
Do you mean time of preparation for the exam, or to actually aswer the questions?
Grande Fabio, como vai?
Sobre certificação ruby, gostaria de saber onde posso acessar mais informações sobre isso no Brasil, principalmente em São Paulo.
Se já existe alguma empresa que realiza a prova…
abraço,
Alves.
@Joao
Você pode marcar a prova no site da Prometric: http://prometric.com/Ruby/default.htm
Depois de comprar o voucher, pode marcar para fazer a prova em qualquer centro da Prometric. Tem vários em São Paulo e no Brasil todo.
Saludos desde Venezuela,
Felicitaciones, Una vez que haz logrado la certificacion te dan algun kid de certificacion, diploma, credencial, pin, franela como lo hace Sun?
Gracias
Yes, they sent me a nice and beautiful Certificate, made with some kind of special paper.
Do you recommend any books or reading material to clear the certification exam?
I have not used Ruby but I am planning to learn the language and give the exam.
I don’t know if there is a book targeting the certification exam. But, I would recommend the excellent Pickaxe book and the official API: http://ruby-doc.org
Do you know any sample test papers at your knowledge.
Unfortunately, I don’t know any.
Hi,
How many minutes in order to complete the exam?
How long did it take you to receive your certificate in the mail? I passed the certification exam about a month ago and haven’t received a certificate.
It took a long, long time. Something like 6 months or so.
What is the longest time before you get your certification you say six months thats a bit long to be waiting, Will they give you a refrence on the phone ? So if your looking to prove this to someone they should e able to tell you this ? Seems a long time waiting for 6 months!
Good work… congrats…
Hi Fabio,
Congrats on your successful completion. Could you please tell me what is the cut-off for one to pass the Ruby Certification, I couldn’t find anything on it so far.
Thanks..!!
Thanks for your blogpost. Can you tell us if you had to do bitwise and binary operations? Talking about 1 & 2, Array#pack etc..
If you can’t answer this here, I would appreciate an e-mail
Hello Fabio,
I’m taking the Ruby silver certification, I would like to know where I can find the material for study and if there are tests to be able to exercise for the exam.
Thanks to Thomas Caporuscio soon.
Hello Tommaso,
Unfortunately I can’t help much. It’s been many years since I did the exam, and at that time there weren’t many resources to help.
Good luck!