From: Matthew Margolis <mrmargolis@...>
Date: 2005-02-14T13:54:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Printing why's (poignant) guide to ruby

James Britt wrote:

> Anders Engstr�m wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> That '\n' is pretty confusing for a newbie.
>
>
> How do you know that?
>
> I'd be interested in any good sources that detail the sort of things 
> different types of newbies find troublesome or confusing.
>
> Offhand, I don't quite see that "\n" would be such a problem given a 
> reasonably succinct explanation.  My own experience with teaching 
> programming newbies suggests that most of them are comfortable with 
> fairly straight-forward edicts (e.g., "That's just how you tell the 
> computer to start writing to a new line").
>
> It's the more abstract stuff (e.g., blocks, high-order functions, even 
> the notion of a variable) that spooks them.
>
> James
>
I have to agree with James.  I taught several young children the basics 
of ruby over the summer and they had no problem with the concept of a 
newline.  They know what the return key does on a keyboard, just tell 
them that it is like that.
Ruby is a great first language.  If someone has no programming 
experience then it would be ideal if they had a mentor they could talk 
to for the basics and OO stuff but I see no reason why someone couldn't 
learn ruby and programming from a combination of 
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/ , Programming Ruby and, 
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/.

-Matthew Margolis