From: sto.mar@... Date: 2013-05-30T18:07:00+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Programming Practice Am 29.05.2013 23:57, schrieb Stu: > On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 3:35 PM, wrote: >> Am 29.05.2013 20:47, schrieb Stu: >> >>> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Brandon Weaver >>> wrote: >> I don't see why you would suggest anything "over ubuntu". >> >> Learning to program (or script) with Ruby has nothing to do >> with the used operating system or (even less) Linux distro. [...] > By suggesting anything which may provide less "training wheels" per > say I am merely recommending the OP to explore other options when they > are comfortable with these new tools and operating systems. [...] > You may think that operating system level programming has nothing to > do with ruby but I promise you there are many projects which focus on > using ruby for such things (portupgrade/homebrew/rake). Ruby isn't > just for web programming and is perfectly suitable for shell > programming as well. I'm very well aware of that. I use Ruby extensively for shell programming under Ubuntu (and I do not use "training wheels"). I am forced to do my teaching on Windows, though, and yet algorithmically it can (of course) get as complicated as you wish. I don't see much value in recommending a change of OS (apart from not using Windows...), especially to a beginner. As a side note: I wouldn't recommend starting with metaprogramming before there is a solid basis of Ruby and OO programming fundamentals. I have seen enquiries about metaprogramming on this list by people who couldn't even define the most simplest class, which I find rather alarming... --