Re: Ruby for beginners (was: Re: Hello)

I've been out of the loop for the last day or so, so I've bundled up my =
comments rather than try to attach as replies to individual messages.=20

1. The whole point of this is to have something useful for newbies. I =
think most of us put together the environments we each like, and this =
should probably continue. It's surprising how little of an IDE a =
beginner will actually use. For example, syntax coloring. I love it =
myself, but beginners often don't even notice it, or understand why the =
various words are in different colors. (I taught introductory computer =
science at the university level for a few decades, and that was what I =
saw in labs.) Most of the menu commands are unknown territory to most =
beginners. It seems to me that few beginners see what an asset a good =
editor is. They ask themselves (reasonably, in my opinion) `what's the =
least I have to know to get my program working?'. Therefore, while in =
general adding features isn't going to hurt a beginner, keeping the =
environment as simple as possible is highly desirable.=20

2. I would identify four environments of immediate interest: Windows, OS =
X, Un*x/GNOME, and Un*x/KDE. Three of these come with quite reasonable =
editors: TextEdit (OS X), Gedit (GNOME), and Kedit (KDE). (You can argue =
for different editors on those three platforms, I'm just saying that =
they are reasonable.) Windows is the exception (you have to ask yourself =
`what kind of deranged company would ship an operating system without a =
decent editor?', but this is Windows we're talking about :). Notepad is =
an OK editor, modulo one `feature': it automatically appends ".txt" to =
file names. Teaching people to put quotes around their file names is not =
that big of a deal, I'd say.=20

3. I would not care to say that *ix users are more or less sophisticated =
than any other users. It's certainly true that most unsophisticated =
users who go out to buy a computer come back with a Windows box, but =
unsophisticated users might be running on any system.=20

4. I had a grand total of five minutes to look at the arcadia web page. =
It sounded somewhat interesting, and might factor well into these =
discussions.=20

As I wrote this message, I think I'm coming up with a concrete proposal. =
The `Ruby for newbies' (`Rewbies'? :) page should lead to four different =
brief tutorials, one for each of the above operating systems/desktops, =
and should lead people through installing and running simple programs on =
each of thse systems, using the native text editor. The premium is on =
doing as few configuration steps as possible: Ruby programs will be run =
in a terminal/command prompt window, and editing is done using the =
system's native editor. A longer-term objective is finding an IDLE-like =
IDE that runs with no effort cross-platform. However, I'm inclined not =
to let that goal preclude us from doing useful things now.=20

Comments? -- vincent