Totally lost in learning Ruby

[David Masover]

There's dozens of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript guides out there, but a
good starting point to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript is
w3schools.com.

Probably a good starting point.

Later on, though... For CSS, I seem to always end up on A List Apart when I
have a particularly hard problem. For JavaScript, you'd eventually want to
read Douglas Crockford's stuff:

http://javascript.crockford.com/

I agree that w3schools is a good place to start, though.

- CSS makes a site pretty.

More specifically, it makes a site look the way you want it to.

You don't really need to learn HTTP (fortunately): If you decide on a
web-based solution, your webserver will take care of that. At most,
deal with error codes, of which you need to know 3:
404: Site not found.
500: Internal Server Error (a catch all, meaning that something in
your webserver went wrong).
200: The client request could be processed.

Those 3 are important to troubleshoot an application.

I think the main concepts here are what HTTP is, what a status code is, what
HTTP headers are, and what an HTTP method is:

http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife

Once you have that, the details of how these things are actually implemented
may not matter much -- I have only rarely felt the need to speak HTTP directly
-- but it's good to at least have some idea of what it is:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html

Also: Web servers, database servers, HTTP stuff etc. is more the
domain of a system administrator.

Probably. Hopefully. It may even be completely eliminated, depending on what
you deploy to:

http://appengine.google.com/
http://code.google.com/p/appengine-jruby/

Or of course, when you're just starting out developing Rails, the default
setup will give you a little SQLite database, and you can get by while knowing
very little.

But, for example, I never felt I really needed to know how to set up a
database server, but ORMs are the leakiest of abstractions. If I was building
something on top of a SQL database, I needed to know at least enough about SQL
to have an intuition of which operations will be fast and which will be slow,
how I should store my data based on what I need to do with it, and
occasionally there's no getting around writing a manual SQL query to optimize
something.

Well, you need two tools to develop Ruby applications: A texteditor,
and Ruby itself. Everything else is gravy.

I'd also cite Rubygems as a necessity, but yes, that's about it.

For web stuff, it helps to have a number of browsers installed, to see
if your markup code and JavaScript work as you think they should.

In particular, probably Google Chrome or Firefox with Firebug, at least. The
ability to right-click and "inspect element" is _very_ helpful for figuring
out what's actually going on with a page.

However, if you can find a web designer, they'll happily do that for
you, or grab a template for HTML and CSS off of a website, like
oswd.org or opensourcetemplates.org .

In my experience, web _designers_ have been terrible with JavaScript and only
tolerable with HTML and CSS.

Searching the web for "<my problem> Ruby library" usually helps, as
does taking a look at http://ruby-toolbox.com/

I also find a search on rubygems.org helps a lot.

While all of this seems like a lot, you can divide this with ease into
several steps:
- Learn Ruby and Rails (or another web framework, like Sinatra)

Learn Ruby first.

I would also argue that some amount of HTML and CSS should come before Rails,
for more or less the same reason that Ruby should come through Rails. I don't
agree with everything Joel says, but this part is important:

"The law of leaky abstractions means that whenever somebody comes up with a
wizzy new code-generation tool that is supposed to make us all ever-so-
efficient, you hear a lot of people saying "learn how to do it manually first,
then use the wizzy tool to save time." Code generation tools which pretend to
abstract out something, like all abstractions, leak, and the only way to deal
with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and
what they are abstracting. So the abstractions save us time working, but they
don't save us time learning."

Especially that last part. Rails saves you time working, but I don't think it
should be used to save you time learning. Otherwise, when stuff breaks (and it
will), you'll have a _much_ harder time figuring out what's actually going on.

 

[Hilary Bailey]

Hi Mike,
The first time I completed the book, then got stuck trying to understand
what, where and how to use some of the recommended programs, such as
YMAL, SQL etc. For example, beside practicing and following all he
written guide, there was no reference as to how to start assembling a
database.

In terms of why Ruby? I put sent out an email SOS to the Open Source
community, and it was unanimous that Ruby is the way to go. What do you
suggest.

In terms of usability. I eventually hope to market it with the intention
of providing for non-for-profit causes, such as a)micro-financing Third
World nations b) provide measurable answers to the improvement of US\any
secondary educational facilities. My experience has shown where private
consultants have been raping scarce financial resources from budgets,
and their decision have kept adding to, in my case(USA),low performance,
thus educational frustration.

So if you next question is why not pay someone to develop such a
program, the answer is: I don't have the money, and secondly, in the
past some of my trusted colleagues with vast programming knowledge have
been a disappointment.

Therefore i figured that my best route would be to ask the Open Source
community for help.

 

[Mike Stephens]

Hilary

Best of luck. If you haven't programmed in anything else then I guess
Ruby is a perfectly reasonable choice.

I am building sites probably much of the same size as your target. I
have a team of six seasoned web developers, an agency that produces
styling, a DBA, UI designers, all sorts of infrastructure people who
build the environments, and others. It still takes many, many months to
produce a site. If it seems like a mountain to climb, that's because it
is.

 

[Stu]

Google search how to "think like a computer scientist".

I don't think the ruby version of the book is done so you may be stuck
with picking the java or python version of the book. actually there
might be a c version as well.

Read the whole thing. And do all the exercises. It's pedagogical.

Take it upon yourself to the challenge of creating a bubble sort
algorithm... on paper =3D)

Look at common data structures and get to know them. Take the time to
know what object oriented programming paradigm shift in contrast to
procedural programming languages. Take the time to understand the flow
of data and memory work with computers and operating system.

Note that low level as well as high level programming is slow process
of learning and practice before your hit the level of "The Art of
Programming".

As for using ruby in it's native environment I also suggest that you
run FreeBSD UNIX or some variant of GNU/Linux but mind you that will
add to your learning curve as well. It is estimated a two year
learning curve for running and maintaining either one of those
operating systems. I imagine that statistic is now lowered on the
maintainability end now that we have over simplified tools in places.

Good luck to you and your project.

~

 

[tim o]

hi all=20
one point is being made here that open source means no owners
no-one really helps this person they all just chat and remark

there are no active groups or even updates=20
and no videos to learn from=20
the ruby wiki-books that is five years out of date=20
Ruby is struggling to keep afloat on its past fling
it was popular before jquery. extjs and perl on parrot vm=20
Ruby releases do not release an update for the old version
since you have to delete your old version=20
it means an ruby is always an 80 mb download=20
and then gems means redundancy=20
not many people use the new version=20
there are several ruby versions all limping along still in use from years a=
go
as they don't auto-update like addons in firefox
it seems inept to re-install a whole new ruby =20
just to get about 5 mb changes in a few ruby patches
interest appears to dwindle as there is no ready basic support=20
can anyone help this teacher with data bases there or just talk for days?=20
why are many of the programs in ruby forge five years old and forgotten?=20
is ragel a good thing? Ruby is cool but is a great mess frankly.
is there support for data stores such as puppet?

Date: Mon=2C 24 Jan 2011 05:05:50 +0900
From: (e-mail address removed)
Subject: Re: Totally lost in learning Ruby
To: (e-mail address removed)
=20
Hi Mike=2C
The first time I completed the book=2C then got stuck trying to understan= d=20
what=2C where and how to use some of the recommended programs=2C such as= =20
YMAL=2C SQL etc. For example=2C beside practicing and following all he=20
written guide=2C there was no reference as to how to start assembling a=20
database.
=20
In terms of why Ruby? I put sent out an email SOS to the Open Source=20
community=2C and it was unanimous that Ruby is the way to go. What do yo= u=20
suggest.
=20
In terms of usability. I eventually hope to market it with the intention= =20
of providing for non-for-profit causes=2C such as a)micro-financing Third= =20
World nations b) provide measurable answers to the improvement of US\any= =20
secondary educational facilities. My experience has shown where private=20
consultants have been raping scarce financial resources from budgets=2C=20
and their decision have kept adding to=2C in my case(USA)=2Clow performan= ce=2C=20
thus educational frustration.
=20
So if you next question is why not pay someone to develop such a=20
program=2C the answer is: I don't have the money=2C and secondly=2C in th= e=20
past some of my trusted colleagues with vast programming knowledge have=20
been a disappointment.
=20
Therefore i figured that my best route would be to ask the Open Source=20
community for help.
=20
--=20
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
=20

=

 

[Shadowfirebird]

one point is being made here that open source means no owners

no-one really helps this person they all just chat and remark

there are no active groups or even updates
and no videos to learn from
the ruby wiki-books that is five years out of date
Ruby is struggling to keep afloat on its past fling [...]

Goodness. If you feel like that what on earth are you doing on this list?

The OP has thanked at least two posters here, so I for one assume that we have said something at least marginally useful.

As for Ruby being "out of date" -- what does that mean, exactly? Even if it were true in some sense, Google the amount of Cobol still being developed - being "out of date" is out of date...

 

[Mike Stephens]

tim o wrote in post #976990:

can anyone help this teacher with data bases there or just talk for
days?

Hilary has not asked any specific questions yet.

On forums like this you can't expect people to design a database schema
for an unspecified education application. You can't answer questions
like 'is there a compiler that matches the contents of a book?'

You have to ask very specific questions that don't take the reader long
to understand.

It's true that people on here are more interested in rather
sophisticated language issues but even so, for general questions, I
think this forum gives responses at least as considered as others I have
seen.

 

[Robert Klemme]

tim o wrote in post #976990:

Hilary has not asked any specific questions yet.

On forums like this you can't expect people to design a database schema
for an unspecified education application. You can't answer questions
like 'is there a compiler that matches the contents of a book?'

You have to ask very specific questions that don't take the reader long
to understand.

It's not only a question of how long it takes a reader to understand
the question but also how long the answer is going to be (how much
explanation and guidance is needed to answer a question). For someone
starting out without or with only few programming experience creating
a web application which is backed by a relational database amounts to
a herculean task. To climb that mountain there is a lot of learning
needed and a technical forum like this is certainly not the best
suited medium to provide this guidance. At least, so I'm guessing, it
will take considerably longer than meeting a mentor personally.

It's true that people on here are more interested in rather
sophisticated language issues but even so, for general questions, I
think this forum gives responses at least as considered as others I have
seen.

+1

Kind regards

robert

 

[Hilary Bailey]

Based on the responses received I am leaned toward the following study =

guide:

A) since I intend to use the internet as the major source of =

communication, learning ruby through Rails may be my starting point. I =

installed Ruby 1.8.7, Rails 3.0.3, with Sqlite3 (1.3.3 x86 -mingw32)

A1) Download Devkit for use as a Ruby source of reference

A2) use the Ruby Gem web asa source of Ruby support

B) before delving into Ruby or Rails, I will learn critical basics from =

w3.schools.com, from which I will cover: HTML, CSS and JavaScript

C) purchase Ruby mine-code editor from http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby, =

using their 30 day free trial prom, to use while finally learning Ruby =

through Rails

C1) get started to learn Ruby/Rails. By first taking a 15 minute =

tour/intro from http://tryruby.org

C2) continue quest by
submerging into Rails through www.digitalmediaminute.com tutorials.

C3) start placing my then practiced scripts + other saved practiced =

tools, into a database of choice so to start dev a project

D) hopefully at this point I will be able to clarify in my mind which =

database source to use, what supporting instruments needed to be =

attached, etc.. to make a meaningful log-in program that will reflect =

real time, with the ability to gather, configure and interpret data.

If my analysis seems na=C3=AFve, please understand, and I think you do, m=
y =

enthusiasm for using the open Source community as a savior to my woes.

What do you think? I know that I have over simplified the whole nature =

of programming, however at this stage I think I will be forgiven for =

bypassing some unmentioned stage/application/procedure.

-- =

Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.=

 

[Sam Duncan]

Hi Hilary,
I haven't been following the thread, but I wonder why you would buy
an IDE? There are lots of really good free ones, and arguably using a
language/ toolkit agnostic one is better for your health. Also, any
reason you are going with Ruby 1.8.x vs Ruby 1.9.x - I don't know a lot
about rails, but if you are coming to the language cold, you probably
don't want to learn old idioms, only to have to unlearn them again later?

Sam

 

[Stu]

I agree with Sam here Hilary.

There have been many holy wars on the internet since the beginning of
time on which text editor to use to write programs and scripts. (see:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Editor_war)

My suggestion is to take a day( or two) and learn vim, a clone of vi.
It is a fairly simple to learn editor which provides syntax
highlighting and completion for ruby as well as many plugins to aid
development for ruby on rails and give the editor ide-like
capabilities.

Historically vi was the first visual text editor and was written as an
alternative to 'ed' the UNIX line editor. vi in some form or another
is found on every unix and linux system. This is one reason you might
find it a preference for admins and programmers. You can get vim for
windows here: http://www.vim.org/

You can run the command 'vimtutor' which is packaged with it and run
though the tutorial.

vi(m) is a pretty venerable tool. Learning anything with it will stick
with you for the rest of your life with no cost outside of simply
learning it. If you really feel money should be exchanged the initial
author of the clone has charity he prefers:
http://www.vim.org/sponsor/

But as with anything and everything in the open source and free
software universe; take the time to learn the tools so you can be
productive with them when the time comes.

Once again good luck with your future programming and hacking.

~

 

[Fabio Cevasco]

+1 for Vim

I've been using Vim for years and I never looked back. To be honest, others m=
ay say the same for Emacs, I think.

Bottom line is: no need of buying an editor or IDE when there are already fr=
ee editors that are so close to perfection

Fabio Cevasco
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
web: http://www.h3rald.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/h3rald

 

[Jeremy Bopp]

My suggestion is to take a day( or two) and learn vim, a clone of vi.
It is a fairly simple to learn editor which provides syntax
highlighting and completion for ruby as well as many plugins to aid
development for ruby on rails and give the editor ide-like
capabilities.

I use vim every day for editing all manner of files on various
platforms. I like it so much that I really hate other text editors and
anything without vim key bindings. That said, I would never claim that
vim and vi are simple to learn by any stretch of the imagination.
They're great tools, but they operate so differently from other editors
that the learning curve is steep (almost vertical for many people ;-).

Aside from that, yes, vim has tons of plugins available to provide all
manner of functionality on top of a rich built-in set of features. And
you can rest assured that either vim or vi are available for immediate
use on just about any Unix-like system you'll ever encounter.

I would recommend that you give vim (or even better, gvim) a try, but
don't spend too much time banging your head against it. Try something
else if vim frustrates you too much for now. You're here to learn Ruby
after all, and it would be a shame for you to be chased off by an
editor.

-Jeremy

 

[Hilary Bailey]

Here is my confusion....take the simplistic case of using an Excel
spreadsheet. I will be abel to type, perform math task etc...if I wish
to save a document can be accessed from the File-Open menu, then what
was saved can nbe executed by playing with some commands. With
Ruby/Rails, would the IDE be the source where I would enter scripts?. If
this is so, how would I retrieve/execute/display the saved macro/script.
Is Vim the tool that will do all of this using Ruby/Rails?

 

[Mike Stephens]

Hilary Bailey wrote in post #979218:

communication, learning ruby through Rails may be my starting point.

Rails is a powerful package but I would think twice about getting
involved in it right now.

Ruby can be accessible but equally it can be very inscrutable to all but
very knowledgable and capable programmers eg most of the people on this
channel.

The problem with Rails is it is a whole new langusge to learn. It is
more like a DSL. If you are struggling with just Ruby, why climb another
mountain at the same time?

Start dabbling with Scite. Open IRB in another window, and a command
prompt for ri in a third window. Explore Ruby's basic behaviours. Follow
a simple Ruby book. Ask a few questions and get comfortable with simple
things.

Yukihiro Matsumoto is said to have designed Ruby based on the Principle
of Least Surprise. When you read that, just remember he wrote the
language so it's not exactly surprising that he doesn't get surprised
about what he created.

I programmed in a number of older languages. You could pick them up in a
few weeks and have real applictions running in no time. Then with great
excitement I crossed over to Ruby-like languages with Visual C++. It was
a different world - an order of magnitude more baffling.

It's fascinating to write a few lines of Ruby and load data into and out
of a database, script a web site or make the numbers on Excel move
magically of their own accord.

Building a credible web application is a whole different ball game.

 

[Stu]

vi follows more command line logic like: {command} {file}

so to create hello world in ruby you would open up a prompt (i'm
assuming this works in dos) and run:

% vim hello.rb

if no dos prompt is available to edit a file you simple press colon
and 'e' then tab will show your file list. if you need a new file
colon and 'n' and type name of the file n hello.rb)

As I mentioned there is a tutorial bundled with the editor. The
learning curve comes from what you may have become accustomed( or
conditioned) to with gui based editors. What harm is it to run through
the tutorial?

It was mentioned about gvim which may have "drop down menus" though
this is really a scaffold when you are new and should be considered
something to avoid unless you have to use it.

The reason to learn an editor such as vi is that you will discover
that you will be come more productive with it over time. It does not
expire or lose support for xyz language as well as I mentioned it on
just about every unix installation currently available. At one of your
peers machines or need to remote into some host? vi is there. no need
to carry your own editor with you.

Also note vi is not hard to learn. It's just different than what your
accustomed to. In most cases it should take a couple minutes to learn
something, some hours of practice and reconditioning the muscle
memory, to gain a skill you can use for the rest of your life.

 

[Josh Cheek]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

The problem with Rails is it is a whole new langusge to learn. It is
more like a DSL. If you are struggling with just Ruby, why climb another
mountain at the same time?

Start dabbling with Scite. Open IRB in another window, and a command
prompt for ri in a third window. Explore Ruby's basic behaviours. Follow
a simple Ruby book. Ask a few questions and get comfortable with simple
things.

+1 Use vim is another mountain to climb on top of learning to program. Go
with Scite (or if on a mac, TextMate) which will behave like all the other
applications you are familliar with (ie the left arrow to go left, rather
than the letter j -- whilst in command mode) There used to be a version
packaged with the Ruby download, that was setup such that you could run the
program you were writing by pressing f5.

Tackle the editor after you have done enough programming to decide that it
is worth learning the editor as well.

 

[flebber]

Hi Mike,
The first time I completed the book, then got stuck trying to understand
what, where and how to use some of the recommended programs, such as
YMAL, SQL etc. For example, beside practicing and following all he
written guide, there was no reference as to how to start assembling a
database.

In terms of why Ruby? I put sent out an email SOS to the Open Source
community, and it was unanimous that Ruby is the way to go.  What do you
suggest.

In terms of usability. I eventually hope to market it with the intention
of providing for non-for-profit causes, such as a)micro-financing Third
World nations b) provide measurable answers to the improvement of US\any
secondary educational facilities. My experience has shown where private
consultants have been raping scarce financial resources from budgets,
and their decision have kept adding to, in my case(USA),low performance,
thus educational frustration.

So if you next question is why not pay someone to develop such a
program, the answer is: I don't have the money, and secondly, in the
past some of my trusted colleagues with vast programming knowledge have
been a disappointment.

Therefore i figured that my best route would be to ask the Open Source
community for help.

I admire your vim and vigor, I really do if you wish to learn Ruby
read from the horses mouth. I tried a few books and found Matz's the
most logical http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596516178 . It seems you
are not only trying to learn Ruby but the whole world of IT in one
gulp, your question what is CSS highlights that, but I do not say this
to criticize because if you put your mind to it you can do it.

Look at this walkthrough http://www.artfulsoftware.com/dbdesignbasics.html
on designing databases, there is an example within using schools as an
example. If you want opensource have you considered using base and
mysql. You could likely achieve your requirement in less time and take
your knowledged gained onto developing your application further as you
learn.

What is base http://www.libreoffice.org/features/base/ or
http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html . I gave you links to both
as currently they are very similar and I didn't want to enter this
debate as I have no personal ideological preference as he technology
currently remains the same.

 

[Nicholas A.]

Hilary,

When you first begin to learn about programming, your first obstacles
will have to do with basic language syntax, understanding how/when/why
to use variables, loops, conditional expressions, data structures, etc.
In the beginning, those basic building blocks may seem curious and
disjunct, but but you will use them constantly and directly every single
time you sit down to write any real code. As you get started, even
basics such as knowing how/why to indent lines of code can give you
trouble. Becoming familiar with the process of installing and working
in your development environment (your choice of OS, Ruby installation,
IDE/text/code editor, etc.), and executing and debugging snippets of
code, can take a while to become comfortable.

After you become familiar with the basic language concepts, tool set,
and work flow of writing/executing simple bits of code, you'll become
more able to use libraries and frameworks that do valuable things:
create GUI windows and widgets that obtain and display processed data
for the user, create web interfaces that obtain and display processed
data, work with graphics, media, compressed files, and other binary data
types, save/retrieve/manipulate text data in useful real-world ways,
manage larger data structures, perhaps control robots, or anything else
you want to accomplish... You'll settle on favorite
libraries/frameworks and become proficient at making them work together
to create full applications that do useful things for users. Along the
way, you'll learn to think more about designing sensible and efficient
user interfaces, you'll learn to handle usage problems that come from
how different people expect to use computer programs, you'll learn to
catch typical bugs that occur in text data processing, anticipate and
eliminate potential security weaknesses, deal with usability issues in
multiuser applications, etc. It can take years and many tens/hundreds
of thousands of lines of written code to really become proficient at
writing rock solid pieces of software that people use easily and
intuitively.

The problem with most tutorials and books for beginners is that they end
with the basics of language structure and bits about using
libraries/frameworks, etc. Once you understand enough basic syntax and
concepts like using loops to search and sort through lists of data, you
need to see and play with lots of code to actual working applications.
You need to see, experiment with, alter and write from scratch lots and
lots of working code. To get started with that, you could try, for
example, downloading wxRuby and playing with all the included code
examples. Take the GUI grid widget example and _alter_ the code to make
it display a sample data file that you've read from a file on the hard
drive. Put together a simple application that reads a directory of
image files, displays the file names in a text list, and then displays
the image when the file name is clicked. Write a small recipe database
application. Write a clone of a classic simple video game. Find a web
host that supports Ruby and learn how to enter data via HTML forms,
process that data with CGI, and display tables of the processed data
using HTML. Enter your sample data file into a MySQL database and write
the SQL code needed to search and sort that data by any field in the
database. When you get stuck, post a question online, with the code
you're trying to make work. You're likely to get detailed help when you
have specific questions about how to fix a small portion of
almost-working code.

I wrote a tutorial for the REBOL language which takes you through all
the stages of learning, including line by line documented code and full
case studies for more than 50 applications: http://re-bol.com. It's
been among the top 3 search results for "computer programming tutorial"
for several years. I'm currently rewriting that tutorial for Ruby, but
in the meantime, it should give you a nice complete understanding about
how to progress beyond just the basics. All the concepts will be
directly applicable to learning Ruby.

Hope that helps

 

[Hilary Bailey]

Hi everybody,
Based on the responses I have been receiving, I will greatly appreciate
any comment on how to move forward from this point. Thanks in advance to
all respondents whom have been soooooo kind and patient.

What I want to create is a database that can measure the performance of
all entities in a school district. The closest software that exhibits
some semblance is that of Microsoft Access. Where, as I understand it,
the input entry of a single data can be housed and then derived, through
a set of queries, then further analyzed through/by Microsoft Solver
software.

The difference with my proposal would be that based on selected
indicators [which will be dynamically influenced by changed event(s) and
policy(ies], which would be able to measure success. I have been exposed
to a statistical software named SPSS and having worked as an economist,
has influenced my outlook on creating an approach/database/software
which would indicate in real time, measured results.

As you can tell, there is an element of nervousness regarding saying
too much. But on the other hand, if not much is said, not much help can
be given. So it's a "catch 24", where since the last 20 years I have
been improving on a systems that would be able to measure defined
academic output, vis-a-vis, financial constraints etc..

Mike Stephens recommended Mendix as a possible solution to my woes. Do
you know of such arena?

Therefore, I figured that, doing it all by myself may be the best
solution. However, some of my concerns are: "Why reinvent the wheel?',
How can I create a sustainable system that does not compromise quality?,
What curriculum structure should I follow that will meet my needs
without, straying from my goals?

Therefore, this is my dilemma, which seems to be going in circles. Any
suggestions.