From: Pascal Bourguignon Date: 2008-04-27T20:20:10+09:00 Subject: Re: newbie; needs direction Albert Schlef writes: > I'm a very experienced programmer, but I'm new to ruby. > > I've studied the grammar of the language already, I found it easy, and > I'm now looking for "good source code" that I can just read and learn > from. > > I already studied ruby-dbi's source code. > > I considered learning AcriveRecord, but maybe I should wait a bit with > this. > > My question, sort of, is: "What now?" > > I know it's a vague question. I'll ask it differently: "I've studied the > grammar. OK. And I'm a good programmer, probably. What should be my next > steps in Ruby? Should I look for a 'beautiful' package, like Rails, and > study it?" > > I'm somewhat at a loss. If you're a good programmer, or even a bad one (presumably you'll become better), why don't you just program? Anything. For example, you could try to implement an _emacs_ in ruby. Allow to specify some grammar, and have it behave like a structure editor. Another example, a favorite of mine: just write an AI shell. Instead of typing unix commands, you'd tell it what you want and it would generate the unix commands needed to reach the goals you set. Or perhaps you want to become a ruby scholar? Then indeed, reading all these gems would help. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ ADVISORY: There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that, through a process known as "tunneling," this product may spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at any random place in the universe, including your neighbor's domicile. The manufacturer will not be responsible for any damages or inconveniences that may result.