From: timr <timrandg@...>
Date: 2008-12-10T06:23:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Completely new programmer lacks direction

On Dec 9, 10:18 am, Cameron Carroll <uberno...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi. I recently picked up a beginning ruby book, having only lightly
> touched python and HLA before jumping into this, and I really lack the
> vision needed to form any programs. It's sort of a combination of not
> quite having a strong enough grasp over the language and its functions
> crossed against having absolutely no idea what kind of programs I want
> to write.
> So I'm just wondering what all of your first types of programs were...
> simple, no doubt, but I'm just looking for a starting point.
>
> Thank you! :)
> Cameron
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

My first program moving from Perl to Ruby was a program that colors
regular expression hits in text files and outputs to the terminal,
like a colored egrep command. My second program was a spelling word
quiz program for my son using Mac os x and the say command and a SQL
database to hold the words. Sometimes, I code simple programs to
calculate something I have calculated to see if I am right. For
instance what is the probability of rolling a Yatzee (6 of a kind) in
the game Yatzee. The answer is (1/6)^5 by the way. Adding a histogram
of the number of rolls required to get a Yatzee by 10,000 observers
makes the task more interesting. Stuff like that. I would suggest
getting the RUBY cookbook from O'rielly. They have lots of example
tasks and the code to accomplish it. You can easilly read it a few
pages at a time.
Tim