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comp.lang.ruby

I wish to learn Ruby ,can anyone teach me???

Amitanshu Gour

8/16/2008 8:36:00 PM

I am a beginner in Programming and don't have much idea about any
Programming Language out there,I wish to start with learning Ruby from
it's basics upto the entire language,please if you can help/teach me
ruby and are willing to do so,do let me know.Eagerly waiting for your
reply.
-Amit G.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....
9 Answers

James Britt

8/16/2008 10:39:00 PM

0

Amitanshu Gour wrote:
> I am a beginner in Programming and don't have much idea about any
> Programming Language out there,I wish to start with learning Ruby from
> it's basics upto the entire language,please if you can help/teach me
> ruby and are willing to do so,do let me know.Eagerly waiting for your
> reply.

Some things here should help get your started:

http://ruby-doc.org/gett...

--
James Britt

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

Jeremy McAnally

8/16/2008 10:47:00 PM

0

Hi Amitanshu,
Check out http://www.rubyle... . That's a course that's
actually led by someone rather than a book etc.

--Jeremy

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 3:36 PM, Amitanshu Gour
<amitanshu_gour@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am a beginner in Programming and don't have much idea about any
> Programming Language out there,I wish to start with learning Ruby from
> it's basics upto the entire language,please if you can help/teach me
> ruby and are willing to do so,do let me know.Eagerly waiting for your
> reply.
> -Amit G.
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-....
>
>



--
http://jeremymca...
http:/...
http://omgb...

My books:
http://manning.com...
http://humblelittlerub... (FREE!)

Patrick Li

8/17/2008 6:07:00 AM

0

For your first programming language, I wouldn't suggest learning Ruby.
From my experience, both learning and teaching, Java is a really
suitable beginner language. It's adequately powerful, and extremely
simple, and it comes with enough libraries for you to do a lot of work
in.

Ruby is still new. And even though the language is quite elegant and
extremely powerful, there's lots of quirks that can be abused.
Experienced programmers naturally know what features of the language to
use sparingly and carefully. Beginners will have more difficulty.

To sum up: I haven't encountered much that I can do with Ruby that I
wouldn't be able to do in Java. Ruby helps speed things up
tremendously... but that's given that you already know what you're
doing.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Jeremy McAnally

8/17/2008 6:46:00 AM

0

You do know that Ruby and Java are pretty much the same age, right? :)

I disagree. Java has a lot of quirks too, many that get in the way of
learning good practices right off. I think as a first language you
need to find something that fits with your brain and allows you be
successful quickly, be it Java, C#, PHP, or Ruby. Being able to get
past the "I want to do something meaningful" barrier is the key to
learning a language IMO.

--Jeremy

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 1:06 AM, Patrick Li <patrickli_2001@hotmail.com> wrote:
> For your first programming language, I wouldn't suggest learning Ruby.
> From my experience, both learning and teaching, Java is a really
> suitable beginner language. It's adequately powerful, and extremely
> simple, and it comes with enough libraries for you to do a lot of work
> in.
>
> Ruby is still new. And even though the language is quite elegant and
> extremely powerful, there's lots of quirks that can be abused.
> Experienced programmers naturally know what features of the language to
> use sparingly and carefully. Beginners will have more difficulty.
>
> To sum up: I haven't encountered much that I can do with Ruby that I
> wouldn't be able to do in Java. Ruby helps speed things up
> tremendously... but that's given that you already know what you're
> doing.
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-....
>
>



--
http://jeremymca...
http:/...
http://omgb...

My books:
http://manning.com...
http://humblelittlerub... (FREE!)

David Masover

8/17/2008 7:21:00 AM

0

On Sunday 17 August 2008 01:06:37 Patrick Li wrote:
> From my experience, both learning and teaching, Java is a really
> suitable beginner language. It's adequately powerful, and extremely
> simple, and it comes with enough libraries for you to do a lot of work
> in.

I'd strongly disagree with this...

First, let's get the FUD out of the way: Ruby comes with a lot of libraries,
too. What's missing is available on Rubygems, and what's missing from there
is available on Github.

And if there's some Java library you absolutely cannot live without, there's
always JRuby.


Here's the biggest problem I have with Java: Right there, in my first Computer
Science class, was the following chunk of code, a classic "Hello, World":

class Hello {
public static void main(String [] args) {
System.out.println("Hello, world!")
}
}

And make sure it's in a file called hello.java, or it won't work, with a very
confusing error as to why.

So, to understand this program, you either have to just take it on faith that
you're copying-and-pasting boilerplate code -- which is a REALLY BAD HABIT to
teach a newbie (newbies should have ctrl+c forceably disabled!)

...Or you're learning about classes, methods, method scope, packages, return
values, static/volatile, arguments, arrays, strings, and the compiler, all at
once, all just to understand a "Hello, World".

Now let's try that in Ruby:

puts 'Hello, world!'

Clean and simple. Put the string "Hello, world!" to the screen. Explain what a
string is (a chunk of text), and you're done.

Of course, there's a lot more happening behind the scenes, but you don't have
to know or care until you learn about the more advanced stuff.

Add to that the fact that Ruby ships with irb (an interactive interpreter),
and I would call it the perfect beginner's language. Check out:

http://tryruby....

(I would guess that Firefox is the best bet... There's actually a fully
interactive tutorial in there. Thanks, _why!)

Does Java have anything that compares to the above, as a learning tool?



There's a whole other debate to be had, about Java programming style vs Ruby.
I tend to argue that Java paradigms -- strict typing with Interfaces, lack of
closures, templates, and such -- quite often move beyond simply being
inconvenient, and actually damage your thinking, especially as a first
language.

But then, I have somewhat radical ideas -- I would also argue that threading,
in general, should not be taught before higher-level concepts like Actors
have been mastered. In order to use Actors without having to understand how
threads and locks work, you really need to use Erlang...

Victor Reyes

8/17/2008 1:34:00 PM

0

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 2:06 AM, Patrick Li <patrickli_2001@hotmail.com>wrote:

> For your first programming language, I wouldn't suggest learning Ruby.
> From my experience, both learning and teaching, Java is a really
> suitable beginner language. It's adequately powerful, and extremely
> simple, and it comes with enough libraries for you to do a lot of work
> in.
>
> Ruby is still new. And even though the language is quite elegant and
> extremely powerful, there's lots of quirks that can be abused.
> Experienced programmers naturally know what features of the language to
> use sparingly and carefully. Beginners will have more difficulty.
>
> To sum up: I haven't encountered much that I can do with Ruby that I
> wouldn't be able to do in Java. Ruby helps speed things up
> tremendously... but that's given that you already know what you're
> doing.
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-....
>
>

I am really not sure how, someone in their right mind, experienced in both
Ruby and Java can say that Java is easier than Ruby.
Although I consider myself a Ruby beginner, I also used to do a bit of Java
few years back. It was not a fun language to learn or play with.
Just look at the example provided by David Masover and that should tell
you a bit about the two languages.
I program in Ruby mainly because:

1. It's FUN......
2. .... It's easy!
3. The supporting community is great!

Try playing with IO or Socket programming in Java, then try it in Ruby....

The only aspect of Ruby with which I am not happy at all, is the lack of a
"standard" and easy way to do GUI programming. JRuby try to address that
shortcoming, but it actually made it a bit too complex for my taste.

I have programmed in:

1. BASIC - Student
2. Fortran - Student
3. 360/370/XA (Main Frame) Assembly - Professional for 8 years
4. Lisp - Student - Graduate School. Was forced to learn it, but found it
interesting later!
5. C - Curiosity
6. REXX - Professional
7. COBOL - Wanted to know what it was: %&#$%@*! - Never learned this. I
dropped it as soon as I started it.
8. PASCAL - Curiosity
9. PL/1 - Professional
10. SAS - Semi-Professional
11. SQL - Curiosity
12. Prolog - Curiosity - Never learned this
13. APL - Curiosity - Never learned this
14. JAVA - Curiosity
15. Korn Shell - Professional - UNIX Administration
16. Perl - Professional - UNIX Administration
17. Ruby - 4FUN and Professional for UNIX SYSADMIN. I really think this
will be my last programming language. I'm getting too old anyway!

....and I find Ruby to be one of the must fun language to learn!

Bottom line, Ruby should be everyone's first programming language!

Victor

Marcio Braga

8/17/2008 2:11:00 PM

0

Despite I'm in the beginning of it's learning, I found Ruby great for
beginners (compared to Fortran, Basic and C++ that I already know). So
far, for beginners I found it even nicer them BASIC (Beginners
All-purpose etc).
Specially ARRAYS. The concept of multi dimensional arrays in Ruby is
very nice and powerful. I like it very much.
Maybe I can help on that (arrays) if you make specific beginners
questions.

Marcio
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Robert Dober

8/18/2008 10:28:00 AM

0

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Jeremy McAnally
<jeremymcanally@gmail.com> wrote:
> You do know that Ruby and Java are pretty much the same age, right? :)
>
> I disagree. Java has a lot of quirks too, many that get in the way of
So do I,Ruby does not have any quirks, that is outrageous ;)
Now seriously, I do not think one can take the statement as such
seriously, if you think that Ruby has quirks, and it undoubtably has,
you should name that, unless we could slip into a disussion like, Java
is bad and I can prove it, because it is well... bad.

And honestly if somebody turns to the Ruby mailing list asking for
advice how to learn Ruby as a first PL it seems somehow strange to
suggest learning Java. Assuming that Java were a better language to
learn first, of which I am not convinced at all, do you really think
that your advice will be taken seriously?

Cheers
Robert
--
http://ruby-smalltalk.blo...

There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.
--
Ernest Hemingway

Robert Dober

8/18/2008 10:30:00 AM

0

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Victor Reyes <victor.reyes@gmail.com> wrote:
>I'm getting too old anyway!
C'on stay with us, it is always too early to die!!!
Robert

--
http://ruby-smalltalk.blo...

There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.
--
Ernest Hemingway