From: Wayne Vucenic <wvucenic@...>
Date: 2001-07-20T10:08:24+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:18155] Re: Looking for Ruby programming exercises

Hi Sean,

SC>         Why not track a real project?  When I was first learning C I
SC> subscribed to the Apache and FreeBSD's mailing lists so I could get the
SC> gist of what it was all about.  Why not subscribe to a few ruby based
SC> projects and review/participate/comment on the development of (::cough
SC> cough:: ruby-tmpl ::cough cough::)?

Thanks for the reply/invitation!

I agree that there's a fair amount of overlap between what one can
learn by working exercises, and what one can learn by working on a
real project.

But I find that exercises are a faster way to get up to speed on a new
language.  If a language has a dozen (just to pick a number) features
that it's important for a new programmer to understand, then a dozen
well-chosen exercises can be a fast way to cover these features and
get a solid foundation in the language.

I agree with you that working on a real project is valuable, and
it's something I intend to do in the future.  But in the amount of
time I have available for learning Ruby, exercises seem the better
choice for now.

Thanks,

Wayne