The RMU Study Hall is an opportunity for Ruby beginners to be paired up with somewhat more experienced developers to help them work through the problems they're having. Our initial program will consist of a series of 45 minute discussion sessions over IRC between beginner-level Rubyists and mentors from the Ruby Mendicant University alumni network.

If you're relatively new to Ruby and are interested in getting a little extra help, here's an outlne of how to get started:

• You need to fill out a form indicating when you'll be available for a 45 minute session and what you'd like to go over with a mentor.
• We'll review your request, find a mentor that's right for you, and then assign you a time to meet in one of RMU's public IRC channels with one of our alumni.
• You'll show up for your session at the specified time, discuss things with your mentor, and then receive some suggestions on how to improve your craft.
• Finally, you'll fill out a short feedback form at the end letting us know what you liked and didn't like about your session.  This will help our alumni learn how to improve their teaching style.

If you want to participate, you'll need to have a project to discuss, as we tend to focus on practical lessons at RMU. If you don't have something that you can share, consider working on a Ruby Quiz or Project Euler problem and then bringing that to discuss with your mentor.

The first RMU Study Hall will be hosted between 2011.02.14 and 2011.02.18. We expect to be able to schedule meetings with at least 20 beginning Rubyists, but it's likely these spaces will fill up fast, so request a reservation now if you're interested!

Why are we doing this?

In February and March, several of the Ruby Mendicant University alumni will be participating in RMU's meta-course Teaching Technology. Rather than studying this topic in an abstract, disconnected fashion, our students will be getting hands on experience through this brand new RMU Study Hall project.

This program is 100% free of charge and is completely grassroots in nature. It's just another way for us to do something cool for the community while still benefiting our students at the same time.

 The other day via twitter I had asked folks if they were interested in some behind the scenes stats about my Practicing Ruby newsletter, and the response was generally positive. I plan to follow up with some more detailed discussion later, but for now, here are some raw numbers for those curious.  Feel free to ask whatever questions you'd like in the comments section below or hit me up on twitter @seacreature.

All statistics labeled 'current' are based on the time of writing (2011/01/26)

First Purchase Date: 2010/11/06

First Issue Published: 2010/11/09

Number of Subscribers after 3 days: 70

Number of Subscribers after 7 days: 191

Number of Subscribers after 14 days: 238

Number of Subscribers after 30 days: 275

Number of Current Subscribers: 378

Cancellations: Less than 40 (estimated)

Total Number of Issues Written: 21.5

Total Lines written at 72 chars per line: 7705

Average Lines Per Issue (including whitespace): 358

Average Time Invested Per Issue: 3.5 hours (estimated)

Total Revenue To Date: $4600 (estimated)

Initial Price: $5.00/mo

Current Price: $8.00/mo (as of 01/18/2011, for new subscribers)

Average Revenue Per Article: $204 (about 40% of what my articles for OnLAMP paid back in the day, but insanely better than my book)

Average Revenue Per Hour: $58 (about 40% of my average consulting rate)

Obligatory Graph of Subscriber Count:

 Up and to the right, yay!