Iwanna Learn Ruby

Online Books, Tutorials

• The first edition of ProgrammingRuby (PickAxeBook) can be read online.
• http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/ - Don't bother buying the Learn To Program book. Instead, work through this fine online tutorial before investing in the PickAxeBook.
• WhyTheLuckyStiff's "PoignantGuideToRuby" is a currently incomplete but charming introduction to Ruby. It's more suited to experienced programmers than is "Learn To Program". There's an online tutorial available from the same group: http://tryruby.hobix.com/

Documentation

• http://www.ruby-doc.org/ - Ruby API documentation plus links to other online resources
• http://www.glue.umd.edu/~billtj/ruby.html - a list of 20 "Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know"

Groups, Fora, Mailing Lists

• http://www.rubytalk.com/ - The rubytalk mailing list, which is also mirrored at http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.ruby
• http://www.ruby-forum.org/ - Ruby Forum, bulletin board about Ruby
• If you have any questions on Ruby, come to #ruby-lang @ freenode.net and ask us! -- chris2

Supersites

• http://www.rubygarden.org/ - The place to go for everything else. Including a Ruby wiki: http://wiki.rubygarden.org/Ruby
• http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000199.html - Getting started with Ruby: Includes links to pre-compiled packages for Windows and OS X, all the essential documentation, the important guides, Ruby bloggers, and notable libraries

Software

• http://raa.ruby-lang.org/ - Ruby Application Archive, a good place for examples and to make sure your Grand Project isn't already done
• http://rubyforge.org/ - Ruby Forge. Ditto.
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/rubyeclipse - Ruby plugin for EclipseIde

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RubyLearners? list: http://lists.iveyandbrown.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rubylearners is a group starting to learn Ruby together/

Just curious: how does this ("learning together") work, as opposed to the more conventional "read a book/web page and just start hacking" approach?

Imagine sitting down with a couple people, a copy of a few Ruby books, and a laptop. Together, study Ruby, write code, play around. Now, do the same thing, but not co-located.

Apocryphal story (from memory, the original may vary):

  Reporter: Professor Einstein, how does radio work?
  Einstein: Begin with telegraph. Imagine a very long cat, stretching
      from New York to San Francisco. You step on its tail here, and
      in San Francisco the head of the cat meows. That is telegraph.
  Reporter: Ok...and radio?
  Einstein: Radio is exactly like telegraph, but there is no cat.

:-) I certainly had that in mind when I phrased my statement. I'm glad others picked up on that, as well. -- MichaelIvey

:-( But it didn't work. -- AlexeyVerkhovsky

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I'd suggest starting with the ruby-talk mailing list. If you think that list is too high-volume or doesn't cater well enough to your needs as a newbie, try drumming up support for a newbie mailing list there. I would encourage you to try and make sure that there are some experienced ruby users looking over your shoulder (I would volunteer, but I've only got a couple of months of ruby under my belt) -- DanielSheppard.

Care to give your first impressions, as a brief list of points?

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I'd suggest mentioning any topics you want to discuss right here. No time like the present. Do, rather than talking about doing, and all that.

Sure. I've been reading ProgrammingRuby online, and I'm a longtime PerlLanguage guy. I know there are others who are in a similar boat, so I thought it might be fun to do it together. So, I'm inviting others to learn Ruby with me. Anyone who wants to be a Ruby mentor is welcome, too. I figure 3-5 people would be ideal. I'll host a mailing list, and we'll work EnWiki as well, so lurkers can follow along...but it would focus on a few people interested in learning. Like a study group. So, who's in? -- MichaelIvey

[Some stuff moved to IteratorPatternInRuby]

I'm in. I've read the PoignantGuideToRuby already, and found it interesting, but don't know anything else about Ruby -- BrianRobinson

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Look for these things if you're coming from a CeeCeePlusPlus background:

• BlocksInRuby
• Primitive looping, but friendly iteration: 3.times { puts "I'm going to say this three times" }
• Consider using unless rather than !someBoolean
• At least once, you are going to type else if rather than elsif and spend more time than you should figuring out what went wrong, unless, of course, you remember this bullet.

If you're coming from a JavaLanguage background:

• "10 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know About Ruby" (http://onestepback.org/articles/10things/)
• JayRuby might be useful or interesting with a Java background.

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For RubyOnRails learning tips, see IwannaLearnRubyOnRails.

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CategoryRuby IwannaLearn