I need help learning Ruby; completely lost!

[Kaleb Mccamish]

I need help. I need to learn some basics of programming, and was turned
on to Ruby by a friend. So I bought a book about it, installed Ruby and
Vim, sat down and made a tiny little Ruby program that should print out
"Hello, Matz!"

But, it doesn't.

I saved it as a .rb file, double clicked it hoping to see my very first
program in any language EVER come to life, and... A command prompt-like
window opened for a split second, closed, and nothing happened.

Where oh where did I go wrong? Do I need this "Rake" program to use .rb
files? Is it a problem with Vim? Please help, I'm so confused I don't
know what to do!

 

[Florian Gilcher]

I need help. I need to learn some basics of programming, and was
turned
on to Ruby by a friend. So I bought a book about it, installed Ruby
and
Vim, sat down and made a tiny little Ruby program that should print
out
"Hello, Matz!"

But, it doesn't.

It does .

I saved it as a .rb file, double clicked it hoping to see my very
first
program in any language EVER come to life, and... A command prompt-
like
window opened for a split second, closed, and nothing happened.

Thats no error in your program - thats how the windows command prompt
behaves:
it closes right after the program finishes. As just printing one line
is really
quick, you only see a glimpse of it.

So, you have multiple options. Either you open the command prompt by
hand (Start
-> Execute -> "cmd"), navigate to the folder where your program is and
type:

ruby programname.rb

Another option is to add "gets" at the end of your program, like this:

puts "Hello, Matz!"
gets

This makes the program wait for input. It will close once you press
Enter.

Where oh where did I go wrong? Do I need this "Rake" program to
use .rb
files? Is it a problem with Vim? Please help, I'm so confused I don't
know what to do!

I hope I cleared the confusion. Welcome to the list!

Regards,
Florian

--
Florian Gilcher

smtp: (e-mail address removed)
jabber: (e-mail address removed)
gpg: 533148E2

 

[Kaleb Mccamish]

Thanks Mr(s?). Gilcher! Adding "gets" to the end does the trick!

I suppose since my initial problems have been rectified, I'll use this
thread for any future problems. Saves energy, and cuts down on spam!

Thanks again!

 

[Mike Stephens]

Thanks Mr(s?). Gilcher! Adding "gets" to the end does the trick!

I suppose since my initial problems have been rectified, I'll use this
thread for any future problems. Saves energy, and cuts down on spam!

Thanks again!

If you're starting off dabbling, you might prefer to use IRB. You can
see everything that's going on then.

 

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

I need help. I need to learn some basics of programming, and was turned
on to Ruby by a friend. So I bought a book about it, installed Ruby and
Vim, sat down and made a tiny little Ruby program that should print out
"Hello, Matz!"

But, it doesn't.

I saved it as a .rb file, double clicked it hoping to see my very first
program in any language EVER come to life, and... A command prompt-like
window opened for a split second, closed, and nothing happened.

Where oh where did I go wrong? Do I need this "Rake" program to use .rb
files? Is it a problem with Vim?

Probably. ;-) I use emacs.

Please help, I'm so confused I don't
know what to do!

Launch irb from a terminal:

[pjb@host :0.0 ~]$ irb
Pascal, Welcome to the IRB!

irb(main):001:0> printf "Hello Matzacrer!\n"
Hello Matzacrer!
=> nil
irb(main):002:0> def f(x)
irb(main):003:1> if (x==1)
irb(main):004:2> 1
irb(main):005:2> else
irb(main):006:2* x*f(x-1)
irb(main):007:2> end
irb(main):008:1> end
=> nil
irb(main):009:0> f(15)
=> 1307674368000
irb(main):010:0> quit
[pjb@host :0.0 ~]$

It's easier to learn the language when you can try out expressions
interactively. You may edit them in your editor and copy-and-paste to
the irb window, or if you use emacs, you can have the editor send the
expression you typed in the source file to the irb process. Perhaps
vim can do it too.

 

[Phlip]

If you're starting off dabbling, you might prefer to use IRB. You can
see everything that's going on then.

If you used the One Click Installer, it came with Scite. Just type in a program
and tap F5.

 

[Martin DeMello]

I suppose since my initial problems have been rectified, I'll use this
thread for any future problems. Saves energy, and cuts down on spam!

Please don't do that - it's just confusing. Post one thread per topic,
and keep the subject line relevant to that specific problem; that way,
you're both more likely to get answers, and other people who have the
same issues will know to read the thread.

martin

 

[Phlip]

Please don't do that - it's just confusing. Post one thread per topic,
and keep the subject line relevant to that specific problem; that way,
you're both more likely to get answers, and other people who have the
same issues will know to read the thread.

And Google first!

 

[Lloyd Linklater]

I like using netbeans. http://www.netbeans.org/ It is made by Sun and
has a lot of cool built in stuff for ruby. It has a window for the
output so you can see the results easily. It is free.