From: Randy Kramer <rhkramer@...>
Date: 2006-05-24T01:06:59+09:00
Subject: Re: program writing

On Monday 22 May 2006 04:26 pm, corey konrad wrote:
> i think i understand the basic syntax of ruby, now what do i do with it?
> I open up my text editor and draw a blank. How do i get ideas and
> actually start programming? 

That is (could be) a good question. ;-)

I think that in most cases, programmers program something to accomplish 
something.  If you work for someone, you program to accomplish something they 
want.  If you're not working for someone, you can program to accomplish 
something you want, or participate in a free / open source project.

As far as pure creativity, I guess you can do things like create computer 
generated art (e.g., Mandelbrot? curves) or music.

Or create some new program to achieve some new purpose that no one has ever 
achieved.

The real purpose of my response is to say that if you really can't think of 
anything, you could work on one of my projects (which, in general, I'd plan 
to release under an open source license, although I might do some 
legal/ethical "tricks" in an attempt to make money (for example, do something 
like keep my code proprietary but then when releasing a new version (or after 
x years), re-release the old version as open source)).

One of those projects involves "driving" various web browsers (or HTML 
"widgets") (first on my list is tkHTML, 2nd is kHTML, eventually all or most 
browsers/widgets) from a Ruby program (which would also be set up as a server 
(I think that's the right word--I want it to stay "memory resident" so there 
is no startup time when updates come from the source (initially nedit).

I don't want to completely describe the project(s) at this time, partially in 
hopes of eventually finding a way to make some money with them, but if you 
(or anyone else) is interested, among the first things to do are:

   * learn how to create a "server" in Ruby
   * learn how to "drive" tkHTML and then kHTML via Ruby (and/or other 
browsers / HTML "widgets")

> Its alot of different than poetry or art 
> where i can basically start anywhere and just go wild with creativity. I
> guess i just dont understand the creative side of programming. 

I'm more of a utilitarian type person, but even so, aside from things like 
computer generated art or music, I'm not sure you can have the "just go wild" 
style of creativity.  

In most cases (maybe all, when I think about it) a programmer has a goal.  The 
creativity comes in choosing the path to that goal.

> I also 
> dont understand why when i look at o ther peoples code i have no idea
> what is going on. its like i learned the syntax from the book and yet i
> cant read source code and understand what is happening. Its kind of
> frustrating. I thought when i learned the keywords and syntax of a
> computer language that it would open up a new door of creativity but i
> just have no idea what to do with it.

I suspect that you are fairly new to programming and Ruby.  One thing I think 
you need is more experience.  Even if you have your own ideas for goals to 
accomplish via programming, you may do well to spend time on some other 
projects to get more experience.  (Maybe my projects are not the best choice 
for that--I'm looking for help for things I can't (rather, so far haven't 
been able to) do--I can't offer much guidance on how to get them done--on 
other projects you may be able to get more guidance.

Randy Kramer