[Courses] [Ruby] Lesson 0: Installing, References, and your first homework assignment

[Beth Camero]

Hi all -
I'm not going to get to this for a week either, so I'll just introduce
myself.  My name is Beth Camero, I'm a 49 y.o. semi-geeky woman,
managing network/desktop/web support for a mid-size non-profit
association in Sacramento, California.  I've worked there for 15 years,
and basically created the job I have.  I was hired lo those 15 years ago
as a non-typing secretary who had never touched a computer.  Somebody
there showed me WordPerfect on a little old PC (one of 3 stand-alones,
tennis-shoe network only) and I fell in love.  Learned lots, became the
computer guru for the office, grew a network and turned us into a
[fairly] high-tech place.

I'm probably in the wrong place.  I've never done any real programming
but I'm interested in it.  I have programmers who come in and work for
me occasionally and we do web projects together.  I don't remember where
I ran across Ruby but it sounded so interesting that I thought I'd see
if I could do it.  Worth a shot! I don't know anyone who is using it,
but quickly creating web apps - what a concept! There are SO many things
I'd like to do at work but don't have the $$ for the programming ...
I'm going to be working on a Windoze system, I hope that won't be a
problem.  I have a couple of Linux servers at work, but I don't have any
Linux desktops.
My kid is going to take this course, too - he's  a newbie
programmer/techie but smart as a whip.  I'm hoping he'll  be able to
help me. :)
Wish me luck!
Beth


Laurel Fan wrote:
> = Lesson 0: Installing and Documentation References
>
> == Installing
>
> === Linux
>
> Any modern Linux distribution has ruby package(s).  It might even
> already be installed.  (To check, try 'ruby --version' in a shell). If
> you don't have it, install it with the appropriate package management
> system.  The exact procedure will vary for your distribution.  To
> start with, for yum-based systems, try::
>
> # yum install ruby
>
> and for apt-get based systems:
>
> # apt-get install ruby
>
> If you need more help, ask on the list.
>
> In both Fedora and Debian, irb (interactive ruby, which has a better
> interactive UI than the plain old ruby command) and ri (documentation
> tool) are separate packages (called irb and ri).  You'll probably want
> to install those as well.
>
> === Windows
>
> There's an installer for Windows here:
>
> http://rubyinstaller.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl
>
> === Mac OS X
>
> Tiger (10.4) comes with Ruby installed.  For earlier versions, try
> this page:
>
> http://homepage.mac.com/discord/Ruby/
>
> (I found it on a google search and haven't tried it, so if you do, let
> us know how it goes.)
>
> == Documentation References
>
> There are lots of places to find documentation for Ruby.  Sinc nearly
> everything you'd search for is an actual word (including 'ruby'
> itself, of course), it can be hard to google for.
>
> If you have the 2nd edition of the book, the API reference that starts
> in about the middle of the book is great.  With the 1st edition, some
> of that will be out of date.
>
> The canonical source for online documentation is:
>
> http://ruby-doc.org/
>
> If you have Firefox/Mozilla, there's a fancy sidebar for ruby-doc:
>
> http://ruby-doc.org/docbar/
>
> If you have the 'ri' commad, you can use that for
> documentation for libraries that you have installed.  For example:
>
>   
>> ri File.new
>>     
> -------------------------------------------------------------- File::new
>      File.new(filename, mode="r")            => file
>      File.new(filename [, mode [, perm]])    => file
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>      Opens the file named by _filename_ according to _mode_ (default is
>
> [...]
>
> Finally, here is another online ruby book featuring cartoon foxes:
>
> http://www.poignantguide.net/ruby/
>
> Other websites that may be useful include:
>
> RubyForge: http://rubyforge.org
> Ruby home page (in English): http://ruby-lang.org/en
>
>
> == Homework
>
> Please 'turn in' your homework on the courses list, using the [Ruby]
> subject tag, and with a subject that has something about 'lesson 0'
> and 'homework'.  It's not due by a specific time, but I would
> recommend starting before the next lesson is posted (Mon Nov 14).
>
> First, introduce yourself.  Do you know any other programming
> languages?  What do you like/not like about them?  Why are you
> interested in Ruby?  What are some things you'd like to learn to do?
>
> Second, find and run any ruby program.  It can be something you wrote,
> something you downloaded (hint, look on RubyForge), an example you
> copied out of a book, something a friend wrote for you, etc.
>
> Finally, look at the code.  Find a section of about 5-20 lines of
> code, and try to figure out what it does.  If you figure it out (or
> just have a good guess), explain it to us.  If not, show us the code
> and we'll try to explain it.
>
> That's it, Lesson 1 (covering Chapters 1-3 of the book, "Getting
> Started", "Ruby.new", and "Classes, Objects, and Variables") is next
> week, Mon Nov 14.  See you on the list!
>
> --
> Laurel Fan
> http://dreadnought.gorgorg.org
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