The Poignant guide to Ruby

[pendell]

So I've got my work done and am trying to keep from going crazy while waiting for everyone else to catch up. Decided to learn Ruby on Rails. Stumbled on this guide (http://www.rubyinside.com/media/poignant-guide.pdf).


It's certainly unusual and not what I expected, but intriguing nonetheless.

A couple weeks ago we had a thread discussing first programming languages. I think you could do far worse than Ruby.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Grinner]

Nice find. :smallsmile:

[pendell]

This was on the ruby website too (http://hackety.com/). Promises to teach programming in 20 minutes. Give it a shot, update your resume, and apply for my job!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[The Valiant Turtle]

The poignant guide is awesome in that "what was he smoking and where can I get some" sense of things. It was a real loss when _why decided to remove himself from the online world.

I really, really like Ruby, although I'm not a huge fan of Rails. I've never done that much programming and while I have done some Object Oriented stuff it never truly felt natural to me until Ruby. (I learned Basic in the days of DOS).

I actually remember precisely what it was that caused it to suddenly click in my head and I think it was in the poignant guide: "5.times do"

Somehow seeing something so basic and primal as the integer 5 turn itself into a loop control iterator just broke through all the weirdness that I previously experienced in OO. It was like the first time your brain manages to see one of those 3-D posters for the first time.

Anyway, I definitely like Ruby and think it's very appropriate for a 1st language. Thanks for indulging my little stroll down ruby memory lane.

[u-gotNOgame]

At first glance I read the title as saying "rugby" and got all excited to participate. Then I clicked the link and got thoroughly confused. Now all I have to add is
<script type="text/javascript">
document.writeln('I'll show myself out.');
</script>

Because that's all the programming I ever took.

-UGNG

[lesser_minion]

Ruby is, in general, a nice language. It's not without its own problems, especially if you want to dig deeper*, but you're right: you could do a lot worse than learn it as a first language. Well, first programming language, anyway.

* Ruby's standard library, in particular, has at least a few classes -- weakref in particular -- which are useful for shooting yourself in the foot and precisely nothing else.