From: jake kaiden <jakekaiden@...>
Date: 2011-04-13T21:41:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for beginners (was: Re: Hello)

Vincent Manis wrote in post #992403:

> 1. I would be willing to draft a `Totally New To Programming' page for
> ruby-lang.org, if there's sentiment that this would be a useful thing.

  i definitely think this would be useful.  ruby is such a 'friendly'
language, that it invites people with little or no experience
programming (like yours truly) to get started...  i do think a page for
the absolute newb would be useful for a lot of people.


> 3. An IDE for beginners should be relatively limited, with relatively
> few dingbats and gizmos to confuse. It should focus on offering basic
> editing facilities, along with the ability to write and run programs.
> Beginners don't need API documentation, though a Ruby reference card
> would probably be handy.

  agreed that it shouldn't be too complex - that could just frustrate
people more, but i think something fairly in depth would be good - just
the nuts and bolts, but well explained (method arguments, examples,
etc.)

> And that suggests using Tk as the GUI, because that's included in every
> Ruby distribution.

  if Tk isn't working, shoes might be a good option, as it is easy and
comes with an interpreter built-in.  i use gtk2 myself, but i know it
isn't so cross platform friendly.  i would be happy to help out with
layout/design in any way that i can.

> Is there any sentiment that this would all be a worthwhile effort?

  absolutely...


 - j

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