Re: Totally lost in learning Ruby

I agree with Sam here Hilary.

There have been many holy wars on the internet since the beginning of
time on which text editor to use to write programs and scripts. (see:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Editor_war)

My suggestion is to take a day( or two) and learn vim, a clone of vi.
It is a fairly simple to learn editor which provides syntax
highlighting and completion for ruby as well as many plugins to aid
development for ruby on rails and give the editor ide-like
capabilities.

Historically vi was the first visual text editor and was written as an
alternative to 'ed' the UNIX line editor. vi in some form or another
is found on every unix and linux system. This is one reason you might
find it a preference for admins and programmers. You can get vim for
windows here: http://www.vim.org/

You can run the command 'vimtutor' which is packaged with it and run
though the tutorial.

vi(m) is a pretty venerable tool. Learning anything with it will stick
with you for the rest of your life with no cost outside of simply
learning it. If you really feel money should be exchanged the initial
author of the clone has charity he prefers:
http://www.vim.org/sponsor/

But as with anything and everything in the open source and free
software universe; take the time to learn the tools so you can be
productive with them when the time comes.

Once again good luck with your future programming and hacking.

~

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Sam Duncan <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Hi Hilary,
> =A0 =A0I haven't been following the thread, but I wonder why you would bu=
y an
> IDE? There are lots of really good free ones, and arguably using a langua=
ge/
> toolkit agnostic one is better for your health. Also, any reason you are
> going with Ruby 1.8.x vs Ruby 1.9.x - I don't know a lot about rails, but=
 if
> you are coming to the language cold, you probably don't want to learn old
> idioms, only to have to unlearn them again later?
>
> Sam
>
>
> On 03/02/11 07:30, Hilary Bailey wrote:
>>
>> Based on the responses received I am leaned toward the following study
>> guide:
>>
>> A) since I intend to use the internet as the major source of
>> communication, learning ruby through Rails may be my starting point. I
>> installed Ruby 1.8.7, Rails 3.0.3, with Sqlite3 (1.3.3 x86 -mingw32)
>>
>> A1) Download Devkit for use as a Ruby source of reference
>>
>> A2) use the Ruby Gem web asa source of Ruby support
>>
>> B) before delving into Ruby or Rails, I will learn critical basics from
>> w3.schools.com, from which I will cover: HTML, CSS and JavaScript
>>
>> C) purchase Ruby mine-code editor from http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby,
>> using their 30 day free trial prom, to use while finally learning Ruby
>> through Rails
>>
>> C1) get started to learn Ruby/Rails. By first taking a 15 minute
>> tour/intro from http://tryruby.org
>>
>> C2) continue quest by
>> submerging into Rails through www.digitalmediaminute.com tutorials.
>>
>> C3) start placing my then practiced scripts + other saved practiced
>> tools, into a database of choice so to start dev a project
>>
>> D) hopefully at this point I will be able to clarify in my mind which
>> database source to use, what supporting instruments needed to be
>> attached, etc.. to make a meaningful log-in program that will reflect
>> real time, with the ability to gather, configure and interpret data.
>>
>> If my analysis seems na=EFve, please understand, and I think you do, my
>> enthusiasm for using the open Source community as a savior to my woes.
>>
>> What do you think? I know that I have over simplified the whole nature
>> of programming, however at this stage I think I will be forgiven for
>> bypassing some unmentioned stage/application/procedure.
>>
>>
>
>