From: John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondanger@...>
Date: 2007-09-23T15:37:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Getting started with Ruby (noob confusion)

It's sad to have to say this, but you really do have to get a good  
deal of knowledge to build something like a web browser.
Web browsers are simple on the surface, but internally quite complex  
and over all pretty amazing.

But lofty goals are good!
aim for them!

Python's not bad, but a lot of the books on Python are not great  
reading. Ruby books mostly are good reading. Seems like the joy of  
Ruby comes through in the writing.
The trouble you may eventually run into, is that there are lots of  
good Ruby books, but many topics are not covered deeply in any of  
them yet. GUI stuff is one of those topics that always gets a brief  
intro and not much else. Ruby books have been pouring out this year  
and most seem to sell well, so hopefully more specific topics will  
start appearing in print over the next year...!

I too recommend Peter Cooper's book as a great book for a well  
rounded Ruby beginning. Good stuff.

In general though, Python and Ruby are just a lot alike and very  
different. Try both! Use both or the one you like best, or the one  
that suits your needs best.

One thing I can say about learning Ruby though, it will help you  
learn to program and learn to program better by focusing on what  
matters and not on low level details. Then later, if you want to do  
stuff in C / C++ / Objective-C or some other lower level language,  
your mind will already know how to build the program and you can  
focus on learning those harder low-level things.