Or is there something else I should know first BEFORE going to Ruby?
I’d suggest a ‘Computers & Networking for Dummies’ type book that gives
a broad
overview of how computers and networks work. Get one of those and
experiment a
bit with your home computer. Develop a basic understanding of concepts
such as
tcp/ip, localhost, dns, bytes, bits, files, etc. You do not need to
master
these things… just understand them enough so that you can explain them
to
yourself or someone else on a very basic level. Then come back to
programming
and it will all make much more sense to you.
Programming is not an island unto itself. People try to begin
programming
without having much knowledge about computers and networks in general
and
become frustrated. This is like attempting to work on a car when you
have no
real concept of what a car is… how to drive it or how it should
interact with
the road and other cars, etc.
I don’t say this to discourage you and I don’t mean it in a negative
way. I only
mean to suggest that you look beyond Ruby and programming in general and
gain a
better understanding of the foundations of computing. Doing so will help
you
put all the pieces together.
Yah, see that’s what I figured it’s more than just “me learn to program,
me
learn good.”
I don’t really have a general knowledge of computer functions, and part
of
the problem is i’m always too afraid to mess with that stuff. I know how
to
do the very basic of things like restarting a web service and IP address
but
that’s about it. It would probably have been more helpful had I actually
started sooner and paid attention to these kinds of things.
Anyways you all have been really really nice and helpful and I’ll be
sure to
check some of these links out. I can’t thank you all enough.
You sing a new song, unsung.
----- Original Message -----
From: “Brad T.” [email protected]
To: “ruby-talk ML” [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Just a question to throw out there…
I don’t really have a general knowledge of computer functions, and
part of the problem is i’m always too afraid to mess with that stuff.
If you really want to learn how computers work, your probably going
to need to break a few things…and then fix them. You certainly
can’t be too scared of getting your hands dirty. Obviously you
should do this in a controlled manner(back up stuff, use a crappy old
machine etc).
Also the best advice so far has probably been to just hack out some
program you want. You wont retain anything with out using it. And
most easy stuff is pretty easy to look up, if you need a refresher.
Don’t get caught up with trying to remember anything too specific.
Focus on solving problems, and learning the general ways in which you
can approach them. I’ve always found that to be both more satisfying
and more effective.
One thing i haven’t seen anyone mention yet (maybe I just missed it) is
to
perhaps stop with the “hello world” programs and spend some time
thinking
of a program you want, that would be useful to you.
That will give you an incentive. Then just hack your way through it.
When you get stuck, look things up.
Yes, the first version will be horrific, but it will work and you’ll
learn
some things. Then you can go back and fix it. Or not. Pick another
project that interests you and do that one.
When I was learning Ruby (along with Rails) coming from PHP that what I
did. I can’t stand the “Let’s build a shopping cart” examples
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