Are college professors teaching computer science with ruby?

Ruby
21

I had a programming languages class where we had to research and
present a language. I saw active ruby for a widget program. I
presented on ruby 3 years ago, and for the last 2 years students have
researched and presented it. :slight_smile:

I am a student at east stroudsburg university, (http://www3.esu.edu/),
graduating in may with a BS in computer security and a BS in computer
science.

Becker

22

I donā€™t think that the languages are as important as knowing how to
solve the problem. I know that each language has its proā€™s and cons
and some are better for specific things.
I feel that the only true difference is syntax. Instead of learning a
specific language students should learn how to learn different
surtaxes.

I learned how to program c++ in high school, and continued using it in
college. I had to teach my self ruby, java, php, lisp, VB, C#. I do
not clam to be a pro in each of these, but if i need to do something i
know what the syntax looks like, and i can research the information i
need.

My teaches like the phrase ā€œLearn to learnā€. I dont like it, but
students who like to learn will teach themselves. I found ruby by
accident, and now love it.

Becker

23

anne001 wrote:

I was wondering if anybody taught the traditional computer courses in
ruby.

Itā€™s funny how every decade or so the prominent language taught at
colleges and universities changes. The late 80ā€™s probably were all
about Smalltalk. Then the late 90ā€™s were likely Java-centric. Where are
things now? I would guestimate C# perhaps? I think itā€™s a shame that
most schools might not offer a variety of different languages to choose
from. Like a survey course for a general overview of many different
languages. Or tracks consisting of 1) one of the major commercial
languages (Java, C#, C, C++) and 2) one of the lesser known programming
languagues (Ruby, Python).

24

On Sat, 2006-03-18 at 15:30, Anders Bengtsson wrote:

Personally Iā€™ve used Ruby in lots of smaller in-house projects over the
years. I also know of in-house Ruby use in other companies.
There seems to be a lot of interest in RoR around here, just like
everywhere. Donā€™t know if there are many significant projects starting
yet though. (Java is still the safe bet for getting a job now).

/Anders

I have a friend who works as a web application developer in Gothenburg.
He switched to RoR awhile ago.

Another couple of friends have become interested in Ruby lately, even
though they donā€™t use it commercially.

/Henrik

ā€“
http://kallokain.blogspot.com/ - Blogging from the trenches of software
development
http://www.henrikmartensson.org/ - Reflections on software development
http://tocsim.rubyforge.com/ - Process simulation
http://testunitxml.rubyforge.org/ - XML test framework
http://declan.rubyforge.org/ - Declarative XML processing

25

ruby talk wrote:

I feel that the only true difference is syntax. Instead of learning a
specific language students should learn how to learn different
surtaxes.

I learned how to program c++ in high school, and continued using it in
college. I had to teach my self ruby, java, php, lisp, VB, C#. I do
not clam to be a pro in each of these, but if i need to do something i
know what the syntax looks like, and i can research the information i
need.

I used to think this until relatively recently in my programming
lifetime/career, but nowadays, I donā€™t think that way any more.

Two languages can be so radically different that they require a
different way of thinking about or approaching the very same problem.
Consider how you might use any of the following languages to solve an
elementary text processing problem, such as text substitution applied to
all lines of a text file:

Haskell, Prolog, Lisp, Ruby, C, Assembly.

Iā€™d wager that you canā€™t just go in your text editor and search and
replace ā€œjust syntaxā€ and make it work. Even if you could, the
resulting metamorphosis would very likely be suboptimal for the target
language in question, considering efficiency, elegance and readability.

Somewhat related is a recent blog post of James Edward Grey II,
which shows that differences in the language and standard library can
bring about different solutions.

26

Henrik M. wrote:

I have a friend who works as a web application developer in Gothenburg.
He switched to RoR awhile ago.

Iā€™m located in Uppsala Sweden, and Iā€™m looking for some developers for a
consulting/partnership arrangement. I have several projects for fairly
large clients (although Iā€™m a small company myself who canā€™t seem to
grow fast enough to take on all the work).

I have a very cool project right now that Ajax/Rails might be great for,
although Iā€™m not familiar with the security risks involved with
selecting such a platform for a commercial website.

Regardless - I need somebody, like yesterday. If you or anyone you know
whats to grow with my company (stickstone design), please contact me! I
have huge opportunities passing by because I donā€™t have the bandwidth.
Letā€™s pick it up!

Contact jobs-at-stickstonedesign-dotcom with at least 3 examples of your
work (at least one of which needs to be Ajax, Rails, or DOM -
programmed! A CV/Resume would be appreciated.