From: Todd Benson <caduceass@...>
Date: 2007-05-25T20:42:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby programming challenges and riddles?

On 5/24/07, Hakusa@gmail.com <Hakusa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://www.rubyquiz.com
>
> Hm. Everything I've looked at on this site is time consuming, geared
> towards experience programmers, and most of all: not making me learn
> about Ruby specific things. My favorite riddles are the kind that can
> be written and solved quickly if you know your stuff, and can teach
> you something by other's solutions if you don't. Any site that does
> that? (I'm not looking for difficulty, I'm looking for outside-the-
> box.)

I hate reading code.  I mean absolutely *hate* with a passion.  I hate
reading my own code, even.  I also hate when people are smarter or
more clever than me.  I've almost always been able to pick up the
subject material from a textbook, and jump write into the application
of it.  In college, I never went to recitations, and rarely even
lectures.

With that being said, Ruby quiz and ruby-talk have become very
powerful humbling and mind-expanding learning tools for me -- in not
only Ruby, but programming concepts in general.  Better than taking a
class, by far, because it continuously gives you the chance to bite
off more than you can chew, which is, IMO, the key to good learning in
or outside of whatever you see as a box :)

Read some more code!  Download stuff from rubyforge.  Read through
some of the quiz solutions.  I think you'll find just what you're
looking for.  In fact, if I was going to teach an Intro to Ruby class,
James' ruby quiz book would be required reading material.