Working with MySQL and Ruby

Whoa, what's up SQL and MySQL?

Here's something I've recently realized about learning Ruby: I can't just learn Ruby. Ruby is going to be the thrust of what I'm learning and I'll spend the bulk of my time with it, but if my ultimate goal is to make a career change and become a full time Ruby programmer, I'll have to learn other languages as well.

This idea isn't as daunting as it might have been a month and a half ago, before I even had the seed of a desire to learn Ruby.

So here's something I've noticed about working with a bit of SQL and MySQL tonight. Computer languages share a lot of the same ideas. Sure, Ruby is more elegant than something like C++ and more modern than the Basic I learned in 9th grade, but the idea is the same. So the teeny, tiny little snippet of MySQL I wrote tonight was easier to understand than it would be if I hadn't also been working with Ruby for a month and a half or so.

I actually had to cut my database work short tonight because I couldn't get the MySQL gem to install, but I WAS able to write a program that allowed me to write to a database and retrieve information from it. Pretty cool, considering that's what I've been hot balls to learn since I cracked open Beginning Ruby.