Small practice programs

[dark2]

For someone with some programming background and an interest in
learning Ruby, what are a few good "practice" programs to write?

Brian

 

[Gregory Brown]

For someone with some programming background and an interest in
learning Ruby, what are a few good "practice" programs to write?

http://www.rubyquiz.com

These are great challenges that help build up your skills and also are
a lot of fun

 

[James Britt]

For someone with some programming background and an interest in
learning Ruby, what are a few good "practice" programs to write?

Do you use a computer on a regular basis? Do you find yourself doing
the same little things over and over, by hand? Write Ruby code to
automate or simply them.


Start small, pick a problem or task that has personal meaning, and
scratch your own itch.


For example, got tired of having to leave the command line to run a
Google search, so I wrote simple script to run my queries from a CMD
prompt. I then extended it to search the TV schedule, and later to go
find stuff at my local library.

I also got tired of having to open up a calender application just to
add a reminder or task, so I wrote a small app to script Outlook.

Once one gets started, one sees endless places to add little tweaks and
features, and learns (ideally) to refactor, simply, learn and practice
new ways to do things in Ruby. I have my own version of 'find', for
example, that gives me a menu of the found files, and will launch files
in various applications (again, to avoid leaving the command line.)


As others have (or will) mention, the weekly ruby quizzes are an
interesting source of challenges, but nothing beats self interest for
motivation.


James

--

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - Ruby Code & Style: Writers wanted
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

 

[dark2]

Is there any site similar to Ruby quiz with some slightly easier
challenges?

 

[pat eyler]

You could try the Test First Challenge:=20
http://groups.google.com/group/Ruby-Test-First-Challenge

It's kind of like a ruby quiz in slow motion.

I'd also agree with James suggestion to find an itch of
your own to scratch.

-pate

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Is there any site similar to Ruby quiz with some slightly easier
challenges?

The Ruby Quizzes come in all sizes and difficultly. This week's,
Euchre Hands, is quite easy. Did you read that one?

James Edward Gray II

 

[Gregory Brown]

Is there any site similar to Ruby quiz with some slightly easier
challenges?

Before University of New Haven Ruby Brigade became New Haven Ruby
Brigade, we had a couple challenges. Here is one of them. Don't read
to the end if you don't want to see the solutions, but it's not that
hard... (Read as far as you need to for hints)

http://stonecode.org/organizations/unh.rb/board/viewtopic.php?t=3D10

There is also a simple challenge on the new_haven.rb mailing list you might=
try:
(that no one has solved yet)

http://groups.google.com/group/New-Haven-Ruby-Brigade/browse_thread/thread/=
02c5820ebc0e73d7

Also, look through the Ruby Quizzes a little deeper. Some are
insanely difficult but others are not quite so tough.

Some of the easier ones are:
-Cows and Bulls
-LCD Numbers
-Whiteout

Of course, reading through the solutions or solving parts of the
quizzes is good for the heart, too. HTH

 

[Chris Pine]

Is there any site similar to Ruby quiz with some slightly easier
challenges?

Well, these might be too easy, but I'll mention them:

There are a number of quizzes in my Ruby tutorial:

http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/

Of course, the earlier ones are quite easy (but it wouldn't hurt to
spend 2 or 3 minutes on some of those). But the later ones are
considerably harder (sorting, deaf grandma, birthday spankings,
orange tree...).

Just in case you find it useful...

Chris

 

[Steve Butcher (Steve-O)]

Although some of these are quite difficult (involving, say, dynamic
programming/optimization techniques), here is a huge inventory of
problems associated with the Programming Challenges:

http://online-judge.uva.es/problemset/

scroll done to the catalogs. There are hundreds of problems. The
downside is, of course, that there are no canoncial ruby solutions.

There is a book for them which you don't need but does demonstrate
how some of the different kinds of problems might be solved: http://
www.programming-challenges.com/pg.php?page=index

It would be very interesting to see the solutions to these problems
expressed in a rubyiomatic idiom. (I wonder if they could be
convinced to add Ruby as one of the permissible languages? If not
maybe the ruby community could implement their own?)

Cheers,
Steve