I have recently started learning Ruby, as my first programming language. I feel comfortable with the syntax, and I've done numerous tutorials that just teach the same basics. I have written a few small programs (including my own method for sorting an array that I thought was pretty smart until someone told me to Google 'Bubble Sort'), but I feel I need to attempt something bigger and harder to understand more about Ruby. Any ideas as to how I can do this?
+4
A:
Ruby Resources
- http://www.rubyist.net/~slagell/ruby/
- http://web.njit.edu/all_topics/Prog_Lang_Docs/html/ruby/syntax.html
- http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.8.7/index.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)
- http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby.html
- http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/QuickRef.html
- http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/
The "advanced" Ruby book is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. It wouldn't hurt to read some real Ruby code - most gem's will do for this.
Finally, you need a project. You could take a program you have already written and redo it in Ruby, or you could think of something new to write.
DigitalRoss
2009-09-25 02:28:21
Thanks. Those links all seem pretty helpful. Regarding a project, do you have any ideas for what I could try?
bennybdbc
2009-09-25 05:51:45
Hard to say, because the amount of ambition that should be involved is a rather personal decision and not so much a technical one. How about a tetris clone? Some other console or gui game? Solve the Towers of Hanoi? Oh .. yeah .. here on stackoverflow look at the code-golf tag, and enter each contest in reverse order using Ruby. Good answers are typically < 200 bytes. Compare yours to mine. :-)
DigitalRoss
2009-09-25 06:06:30
Another idea: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Kirkmans-Ladies.aspx I have a Ruby program there too, but try your own entry.
DigitalRoss
2009-09-25 06:11:36
+3
A:
Rubylearning Blog is hosting a fortnightly contest. The first contest went live - http://rubylearning.com/blog/2009/09/24/rpcfn-shift-subtitle-1/
That should be a start :)
rohit.arondekar
2009-09-25 03:31:55
+1
A:
A few years back I worked through Dave Thomas' Code Kata as part of a similar exercise. Fairly simple, self-contained pieces that let me explore the language at my own speed.
The kata idea seems to be moderately popular with developers, particularly at the Agile end - Googling "code kata" with and without "ruby" ought to throw up some more ideas.
Mike Woodhouse
2009-09-25 07:51:59
+1
A:
Hello, fellow newbie. :) I too have just recently started learning ruby.
Right now, I'm reading The Ruby Way. Although I'm not required to code at work, I try to find practical applications of ruby -- no matter how mundane. For instance, I prepared scripts when I needed to test something that required several files with 0 file size and when i needed to generate an xml file based on another xml file; and since there was a tennis meet at work, i tried to create a script for random pairing or grouping. (Little baby steps, i know)
testr
2009-10-04 07:08:39