From: "W. Kent Starr" <elderburn@...>
Date: 2001-02-08T22:36:08+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10573] Re: book review?

On Thursday 08 February 2001 01:51, Kevin Smith wrote:
> Amos wrote:

> >groups between C++ and LISP as the introductory language.  Seems
> >like Ruby would have them both beat.
>
> If I were going to teach someone programming, I
> would probably start with Ruby. The only reason I
> can see not to is the lack of a really friendly,
> slick IDE.
>

Hmmmm....that might be an advantage. :-)

Cutting your teeth on hand coding is not such a bad idea when you are tyring 
to learn something new. The downside to "really friendly" IDE's is that they 
often hide a lot of the basics of which one should really develop a pretty 
thorough understanding. IDE's arte really the icing on the cake...once you 
learn how to survive 'in the wild' so to speak, then learn the IDE to be 
maximally productive.

Just a thought.

Regards,

Kent Starr
elderburn@mindspring.com