

Ask HN: pairing in Ruby with someone who hasn't coded since Z80 Assembler? - duncan_bayne

The guy in question is very smart, &#38; is a subject matter expert for a system I'm helping build in RoR + backbone.js.  I've managed to persuade him to join in one of our Hack Days as a coder.<p>The catch is, the last code he cut was Assembler for a Z80, back when they were mainstream.  He tells the most awesome story of when 'remote debugging' meant calling the security guard at a distant location &#38; talking him through patching code at a terminal :-)<p>Does anyone have any suggestions for how to approach pairing?  I'm thinking ping-pong pairing, combined with a gentle introduction to as few infrastructure items as possible (Git, rspec, bundler, TextMate).<p>Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated ...
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dmmalam
As someone who first leant to program in Z80 asm, I would say just let them
dig into some 'real' code, initially ignoring most (all) of the
infrastructure. Just get a text editor, and a repl open, and quickly iterate
real world code (actual problems). They should very quickly get a feel for the
language, and then you can add infrastructural like git, TDD, package
management.

