I’ve been struggling through the pickaxe book for the last week or so,
but
I’m pretty new to programming and a lot of the
ideas are new to me, so I’ve been having trouble making them stick. As I
finish sections or chapters I try to make a
script of some sort to use whatever has just been covered, but I usually
can’t come up with ideas that cover enough
different things without being too broad or ambitious. Is there any sort
of
problem set or something for learning ruby?
I’m preferably looking for something online as I already bought the
pickaxe
book and I’m on what we call the “starving
college student” budget. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
On Aug 4, 2006, at 2:22 PM, RJ Melton wrote:
Is there any sort of problem set or something for learning ruby?
Well, I’m clearly biased, but are you aware of the Ruby Q.:
James Edward G. II
I’m none too biased (save for my admiration of the Ruby language), but
I’ll say that RubyQuizzes are tough. I’ve just discovered how cool
these quizzes are, and my first nearly-completed quiz was the Chip8
one. But, really, even if you don’t actually do those quizzes, the
solutions to them are invaluable, and really very clever. There are
some smart people solving them and you can learn a lot quickly.
I, too, am on the starving college budget, so I know how you feel.
Really, the best way is to jump right in and start building stuff. If
you’ve got a big idea, then go for it: you can break that big idea
into smaller chunks and build up from there! That’s what I’ve been
doing.
Also, read a lot of code from other people. I regularly read a number
of blogs that show their code and what it actually does and this has
helped me tremendously. Do stuff that stretches your mind and your way
of thinking. Read _Why The Lucky Stiff’s Poignant Guide to Ruby and
his blog as well. He’s got some trippy code that will mess you up, but
it’s good because it reframes your mind into the right mindset, and
it’ll make you comfortable with the less strange pieces of his code.
On this note, maybe we can have a RubyQuiz for beginners? (Or at least
a rating system for difficulty, etc.)
Cheers!
M.T.
On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:01 PM, Matt T. wrote:
On this note, maybe we can have a RubyQuiz for beginners? (Or at least
a rating system for difficulty, etc.)
Most quizzes these days are submissions. If you submit easier
problems, quizzes will get easier. 
I generally rule out anything I can solve in one or two lines. I’m
pretty open to most anything else though.
We have certainly had very easy quizzes too: LCD Numbers and pp
Pascal are two good examples, I think.
James Edward G. II
The quizzes are definitely something I’ll be following from now on. I
might
not understand most of them yet, but they seem like a good demonstration
of
the different things the language is capable of.
As for Why the Lucky Stiff, that is certainly an, uh, interesting
resource.
I read the Poignant guide today and very much enjoyed it, so I’ll
take a
look at his blog from time to time. Between these, and just some random
reading on the internet I shouldn’t have too much trouble finding stuff.
Much thanks to everyone who responded.
I think this is exactly what you’re looking for: The Little Book of
Ruby.
http://www.sapphiresteel.com/The-Little-Book-Of-Ruby
It’s free and comes with code examples. You can read along and open the
rb files to see how it works, as you go along. It’s pretty cool. I
haven’t coded anything for 5 or 6 years since my last few programing
classes. It helped me a lot. Even with the examples, there’s a lot for
a newb to chew off, so it will still be a challenge.
-nate
RJ Melton wrote:
I’ve been struggling through the pickaxe book for the last week or so,
but
I’m pretty new to programming and a lot of the
ideas are new to me, so I’ve been having trouble making them stick. As I
finish sections or chapters I try to make a
script of some sort to use whatever has just been covered, but I usually
can’t come up with ideas that cover enough
different things without being too broad or ambitious. Is there any sort
of
problem set or something for learning ruby?
I’m preferably looking for something online as I already bought the
pickaxe
book and I’m on what we call the “starving
college student” budget. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Woops; nevermind. I just noticed the date of the original post. You’re
probably like a pro now.
Nate I. wrote:
I think this is exactly what you’re looking for: The Little Book of
Ruby.http://www.sapphiresteel.com/The-Little-Book-Of-Ruby
It’s free and comes with code examples. You can read along and open the
rb files to see how it works, as you go along. It’s pretty cool. I
haven’t coded anything for 5 or 6 years since my last few programing
classes. It helped me a lot. Even with the examples, there’s a lot for
a newb to chew off, so it will still be a challenge.-nate
RJ Melton wrote:
I’ve been struggling through the pickaxe book for the last week or so,
but
I’m pretty new to programming and a lot of the
ideas are new to me, so I’ve been having trouble making them stick. As I
finish sections or chapters I try to make a
script of some sort to use whatever has just been covered, but I usually
can’t come up with ideas that cover enough
different things without being too broad or ambitious. Is there any sort
of
problem set or something for learning ruby?
I’m preferably looking for something online as I already bought the
pickaxe
book and I’m on what we call the “starving
college student” budget. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks.