From: Josh Cheek <josh.cheek@...>
Date: 2011-04-13T21:59:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for beginners (was: Re: Hello)

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On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:30 PM, Vincent Manis <vmanis@telus.net> wrote:

> OK, so here's another kick at the can.
>
> 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 think it would be good. New to programming tutorials should be very
different from tutorials for people who already program.


> 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.
> Such an IDE should be something that can be included with the installers,
> and depend upon nothing else. Of course the model here is Python's IDLE,
> which IMHO isn't suitable for serious programming, but on the other hand is
> very useful for getting started with Python. I used to use it in all my
> Python courses, even with programmers who presumably knew other editors
> well.
>
> And that suggests using Tk as the GUI, because that's included in every
> Ruby distribution. So the one-click installers could thus incorporate a
> basic IDE that was at least useful enough to get people started.
>
> Is there any sentiment that this would all be a worthwhile effort?
>
>
Are you thinking of building your own editor? Surely this work has already
been done.

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