From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2011-03-21T16:12:21+09:00
Subject: Re: The best practices to learn Ruby

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On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 06:27:14AM +0900, Fily Salas wrote:
>=20
> I'm currently trying to learn Ruby by watching tutorial reading books an
> articles on the internet but I was wondering what would be the best way
> to practice it if you dont use Ruby on Rails or dont have any projects
> to work on
>=20
> 1-Where and how can I practice Ruby?
>=20
> 2-What kind of project can you do to get better on Ruby?
>=20
> 3-How did you learn Ruby?
>=20
> 4-What you use Ruby for?

Here's an article that discusses some of the books and other resources
available to people new to ruby, and how they might be of some use:

    Learn Ruby with these 10 books and other resources
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3886

You've already found at least one of them -- this mailing list.

Here's another article, about approaches to learning to program:

    Seven ideas for learning how to program
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3308

My personal favorite, and probably the best-suited to learning to program
via Ruby (or any language that fills a similar niche, including Perl,
Python, et cetera) is #6, scripting in the Unix environment.

One of the most simple types of script in design, as well as being one of
the most useful (especially in a Unix-like environment), is writing
command line filters.  Here's an article that touches on that (not only
in Ruby, but in Perl and Bourne shell as well):

    Simple filters in Perl, Ruby, and Bourne shell
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3481

Aside from Unix environment scripting, another interesting approach you
could take is smartphone scripting.  There's a scripting environment that
supports Ruby on Android called SL4A, and here's an article that talks
briefly about that:

    Try the SL4A scripting environment for your Android device
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3932

In addition to SL4A, there's also Ruboto, a straight-up JRuby interpreter
that runs on Android.  You can get that in the Android Market.

A somewhat gentle, though quick, introduction to Ruby via progressively
more complex variants of a Hello, World program is presented in this
article:

    Five Ruby Hello World greetings
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3177

I use Ruby for all kindsa stuff.  I created an ASCII art fortune telling
program (similar to Tarot) for the fun of it recently.  I write text
processing utilities regularly.  I wrote an IRC dicebot for online gaming
with the Isaac library, and here's an article that talks about that:

    Let Isaac help you build IRC bots
    http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=3D3784

I also wrote my own lightweight Weblog-style CMS in Ruby, and it's what I
use on my devlog (development Weblog, that is).  A friend of mine,
meanwhile, has written spam filters, reminder software that integrates
with his calendar application, an IM and IRC client, proofreading helper
scripts, and a post-submission script for WordPress so he doesn't have to
open his browser to post something.  He's also a much better programmer
than me.

(Full disclosure: the above articles were all written by me, which is why
I know where to find them all so easily.)

Best o' luck.  Ruby's a fun language.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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