From: Richard Conroy <richard.conroy@...>
Date: 2008-12-10T06:05:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Completely new programmer lacks direction

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Craig Demyanovich
<cdemyanovich@gmail.com> wrote:
> Since you write that you're new to programming, you might like Learn to
> Program [ http://pragprog.com/titles/fr_ltp/learn-to-program ] by Chris
> Pine. I've read good things about it in the past.

Yeah I bought that for my girlfriend. Then she got a bit stuck on the
recursion exercise. I had a quick look
and was very impressed by the example. Its a small book, but its
proper stuff - its even covering Procs and
stuff by the end.

To the OP - motivation/inspiration is hard. The amount of seriously
cool stuff going on in the ruby world
can often be a distraction too. Its been a long time since Ruby was
cool for just one thing.

But you really need to start coding. Anything at all to build up the
muscle memory. Its hard to get excited
about a pet store rails example, but a twitter/flicker mashup is not bad start.

If you are really stuck, check out the Ruby for Kids stuff- Shoes and
HacketyHack. Both of which passed
major milestones recently.

But ultimately, doing something you care about, that scratches an itch
you feel is the most important thing.