Ruby on Kind of Idea

Ruby and Education: A Match Made in Heaven (translation)

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It's important not to generalize about Ruby as if it could solve all your problems. It is a general-purpose language, but, like all other languages, it will be suitable in some contexts and not in others. The purpose of this post by Kate Cunningham, which I translated, is to show that Ruby's characteristics are very much in harmony with the characteristics needed in an effective learning environment. This doesn't mean that students should stop at Ruby. Ruby will make the path into programming easier for them, but it is only a first step. They should learn other languages too, since that's the only way to grow as a professional in such a dynamic field. You can find the original here. And now, the translation:

The Ruby language has received a lot of attention over the past decade, especially since the advent of Ruby on Rails in 2005. While the blogosphere has been using Ruby for a long time, let’s ask how, exactly, Ruby is suited to an educational environment.

Nerd Talk: Nerd 2.0

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I attended OxenteRails 2009, Rails Summit 2009, CearáOnRails 2009, and now OxenteRails 2010. It became clear that a new nerd culture is spreading faster and faster. I call this new nerd culture Nerd 2.0.

The key point is that you can no longer spend all your time in front of the computer (Nerd 1.0). Now a nerd has to be sociable and balance a love of technology with interpersonal relationships, whether with friends, at work, or elsewhere (Nerd 2.0).

Learn BDD by Playing Dice — eBook

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, Ruby enthusiast! Hello, BDD enthusiast! I invite you to read, download, modify, clone, or do whatever you like with the book Learn BDD by Playing Dice!

This mini-book is a journey, line by line and test by test, using the Behavior-Driven Development technique on a very interesting project: simulating the dice in the game War!

I wrote this little book to learn BDD and RSpec, so I needed to cover something simple and, preferably, fun. Then I thought: Why not roll some dice? Why not roll the dice from the game War? So here it is: Learn BDD by Playing Dice!

Learn BDD by Playing Dice — eBook

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, Ruby enthusiast! Hello, BDD enthusiast! Welcome to this journey, line by line and test by test, using the Behavior-Driven Development technique on an interesting project: a War dice simulation!

I wrote this tiny book to learn BDD and RSpec myself. I wanted to start with a small example, and, if possible, a fun one too. Then I thought: Why not roll some dice? Why not roll the dice from the game War? And here you are: learning BDD by playing dice!

Functional Programming and Loops (translation)

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

People who come from languages like C, Java, Delphi, and C#, and use Ruby for the first time, tend to program in Ruby the same way they programmed in the language they already know well. As you read the post below, you'll see that languages with functional features, such as Ruby, offer their own ways of organizing code (the Ruby way). More specifically, in this article by Jon Dahl, you'll see more efficient ways to iterate (loop) in Ruby. You can find the original here. And now, the translation:

If you’re a programmer, you’ve probably worked through one or more books that taught you the syntax of a new language. I’ve had that experience with half a dozen languages, such as C, JavaScript, and Perl.

Nerd Talk: A Conversation About Programming Languages

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In today’s Nerd Talk, I’ll broaden the format a little. In addition to the nerd attacks I started with in the first article, I’ll also include something like those bar conversations where, after a few drinks, everyone tries to out-philosophize everyone else :) . More specifically, in this post I’ll share conversations about the general day-to-day of a web developer, held over instant messaging.

This virtual nerd conversation was about programming languages, and more specifically Python and Ruby. I was chatting with my friend Macelo. Here’s the conversation:

Accessing Twitter via the Interactive Ruby Shell (irb)

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I was looking for a simple Ruby solution for updating messages through irb. I found these Ruby class options:

Twitter by John Nunemaker — this is the most complete one.
Twittery, a very simple class that uploads photos through the TwitPic API. The project is maintained by Chris Ledet.

I used the class from the Twittery project as a learning starting point because I wanted a quick and simple solution, even though it doesn’t have the security of the OAuth authentication protocol already included in John Nunemaker’s project.

Ruby + irb + utility-belt + gedit = :)

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In September 2008, Akita wrote an interesting post about utility-belt, a gem that adds several features to irb (it’s a bit like giving irb a Red Bull). Some of its features include:

Launching Vi or TextMate from irb, letting you quickly write or paste some code, save it, close the editor, and test it in irb without creating a file and saving it in a directory.
Viewing a command history by typing “h”.
Opening the history in TextMate or Vi using hvi or hmate.
Watch Akita’s screencast to see how it works.

So far, so good. But the big problem is that I use Ubuntu with gedit to write Ruby code, and utility-belt doesn’t have specific methods for launching gedit. The utility-belt help offers edit_interactively(:gedit), but of course I couldn’t settle for that method; I wanted it to work the same way as it does with Vi or TextMate.

How to Become a Famous Rails Developer (Translation)

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Note: Besides being inspiring, this post is very enlightening. It reminds us to put our feet back where they belong: on the ground. It also shows that we can accomplish many great things by making the right choices and doing the one beneficial, sustainable thing in the programming world: reading, writing, and sharing code. If any part of the translation could be improved, feel free to suggest a change. You can find the original text here. And now, here's the translated text:

Hi everyone, I’m Chris Wanstrath, and I’m going to teach you how to become a famous Rails developer. A Ruby rock star. A programming ninja. It’s not hard: just focus like a laser and have a little patience.

How the Ruby Language Can Help Captain Morrimento

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, everyone. I previously wrote a comparison of Ruby and Pascal, and now I have received a request to help Captain Morrimento select his recruits using software.

The problem is that Captain Morrimento had to go on leave from his battalion, but still wanted to make sure his team stayed in line and keep an eye on the recruits so they would not cause trouble later.

To make matters worse, I discovered that Captain Morrimento is very short-tempered and does not want to waste time with a complex interface. He knows how to use basic office software (just a text editor). So he wants something that comes as close as possible to copying the recruits’ records from his PC and pasting them into a field that checks and diagnoses the recruit.

Ruby as a First Programming Language!

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, this may sound a little strange to some people, especially the more traditional ones, but that is what I am proposing in this post.

My first experience with a programming language was in 1997, with Pascal, a language created in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth, whose main goal was to encourage the use of structured code, especially for teaching.

Here is a small example of a logical test in Pascal:

    program Testelogico;
       
    var a,b:integer;

    uses crt;

    begin
     clrscr;
     writeln ('Digite um número para A');
     readln (a);
     writeln ('Digite o número para B');
     readln (b);
    
     if (a = b) then
        writeln ('A é igual a B')
     else
        if (a &lt; b) then
              writeln ('B é maior que A')
        else
              writeln ('A é maior que B');
    end.

We can see that this code requires learning several concepts related to the language’s structure itself instead of focusing on the problem. For example, it requires parentheses and a semicolon at the end of a block, as well as the classic rule that you do not put a semicolon before else, because the semicolon is used to end programming blocks.