Any Homebrewers also Ruby Computer Programmers?

[brewNOLA]

In addition to my love of all things homebrewing, I am interested in learning about computer programming and have no prior knowledge. I've done some looking on the inter-webs and a little investigation of Ruby. Any advice from computer programmers on a good way to get more knowledge? Please keep in mind that I am an absolute beginner, so I am open to advice on how to gain basic computer programming knowledge before trying to learn a specific language.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[KBentley57]

I'm not advanced by any means, but ruby seems like an odd choice to start off with, mainly because (a) it's not that popular in comparrison, and (b) it's very high level. In hindsight of my programming woes, the largest hurdle is making sure you can think clearly about a problem. I would probably go with python as a first language, or right on into c++, depending on your goals in the end. Pick up a cheap calc 1 book from the internet and make a few little programs that do a tiny bit of math. It will def. help you think about the problems, while not being too involved to distract.

I like the SAMS teach yourself ________ books, they are easy to read, and pretty thorough.

 

[pmpbrewer]

I was a developer for many years (I've moved up recently) and would questions what type of programming you want to do.

Java has lots of options so it might not be bad. Lots of web applications use PHP.

Personally, I ended up using c# in the end but it was more a factor of the company I worked for.

Do your research and get a good IDE and it will make learning any language easier. Learn the basics and you can translate them to any language.

Just to give some context, I started out programming inBasic and COBOL, moved to C and C++, assembly, Java, PHP, coldFusion, C# and back to Java again. Lots of other less known languages throughout the years but i was generally able to apply my knowledge across platforms. I usually struggled with figuring out how a new IDE was trying to 'help' me.

 

[BetterSense]

I'm not sure why you would 'start off' with Ruby. Ruby is a language for people who know what they want and/or are bored.

I write an awful lot of Perl at my job. Perl is not perfect, but I think it's a great high-level language for a hobbyist because it's 20+ years old, on everything, has lots of modules and support, meshes seamlessly with other Unix tools, and works. If you want to be one of the cool kids, go with Python, I guess, but Perl is more universal IMO.

I also write a lot of C in the form of avr-gcc for AVR microcontrollers. You HAVE to learn C; it's the ur-language. Writing C for microcontrollers is a fantastic (though somewhat boot-campish/masochistic) way to learn programming, with the benefit that you can create awesome embedded projects. Once you realize what you can do with a $3 microcontroller, it's like a whole world of cheap small projects opens up. Why spend $30 on a PID controller when you can write one in 30 minutes on a $3 part?

If both Perl and C are too old-schoolish, learn Javascript. Javascript is becoming something of a defacto standard. Even Gnome is letting, even recommending that new Gnome developers write GUI applications in Javascript. The browser is the modern computing platform, so learn Javascript and/or PHP if you have ambitions there.

Java/C# is like the modern COBOL. The business world runs on it. Learn it if you have to write it to make money. There isn't much attractiveness otherwise. I try hard to ignore the existence of C++, so I won't comment.