[ale] semi [OT] making learning ruby programming fun?

Wed Mar 27 11:57:18 EDT 2013

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Glancing at the first page it sort of reminds me of an album jacket of
one of "Big Brother & The Holding Company" (while Janis Joplin was
their lead singer). The artwork is very similar, except the book is B&W.

On 03/27/2013 09:21 AM, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> My $0.02:  Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby ( 
> http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/ ).  One of the more
> unusual language textbooks you will encounter.
> 
> btw I enjoy C, C++, Python, SQL, shell, and several other
> languages about equally.  I dunno why Python's caring about
> whitespace is a deal-breaker for Mr. Frazier.
> 
> -- CHS
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) 
> <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com 
> <mailto:atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com>> wrote:
> 
> Hi Scott,
> 
> I understand what you're saying.  Heck, if someone wants to pay me 
> to learn it, then I will.  At the moment, though, I've uninstalled 
> Java on all my Windows machines and am trying to figure out how to 
> do so in Linux because of the security risks of having it on my 
> system.  If I have to learn it, or use it, I might have to do so
> in a purpose built VM.
> 
> I have heard that the Java syntax is more obtuse and verbose and 
> that the object model is harder to follow than some others.  I get 
> the impression that you have to type a whole lot more and it's a
> lot more cryptic to get something done, versus, say, Go or Ruby.
> That's just from memory and I cannot remember the source.  There
> may have been multiple sources.  But, I don't have any personal
> experience with it.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
> 
> Scott Plante <splante at insightsys.com 
> <mailto:splante at insightsys.com>> wrote:
> 
>> There are probably some good reasons not to pick Java as the
>> modern language you want to learn, but "security problems" is not
>> one of them. There have been several security holes found lately,
>> but they relate to running un-trusted Java in the browser. Almost
>> all the Java jobs revolve around writing Java on the server, and
>> practically all the rest are Java applications on the desktop or
>> as a trusted applet or browser-launched application.
>> 
>> 
>> It's a very hard problem to allow random, un-trusted code to run
>> on your computer and yet prevent it from doing any harm. It's a
>> bit easier if you have an extremely limited language that doesn't
>> do much anyway. They're constantly finding security holes in
>> JavaScript, Flash, and ActiveX, too. That's not meant to be an
>> excuse and vendors do try to fix holes as quickly as possible,
>> with differing levels of competency . Also, these holes weren't
>> in "Java" per se, but in the Oracle JVM. Some of them might also
>> have been in, say, the IBM JVM or JRocket JVM since there is code
>> sharing between projects. But they were probably not in Google's
>> Dalvik JVM (since they don't do applets), even though for Android
>> you write in the Java language (more or less).
>> 
>> 
>> In a recent security contest, participants found holes inthe
>> major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari and Java
>> and Win 7/8. Chrome OS did relatively well with only a "partial"
>> exploit. It's not so much that Java is less secure than
>> JavaScript, it's just that you can do general browsing these days
>> without Java, but you can't do without JavaScript.
>> 
>> 
>> But all these security holes, in a sense, exist in spades for
>> PHP, C, C++, etc., because they're not even trying to limit what
>> your code can do. In other words, if the OS allows your user to
>> overwrite a file with a regular program (not an unsigned applet)
>> written in Java, you can also overwrite that file with C, PHP,
>> Ruby, Python, Perl, etc. But they're not security "holes" because
>> the language (including Java) is making no guarantees in that
>> case. But avoiding Java on the server-side because of unsigned
>> applet security holes is like choosing a sedan for highway
>> driving over a crossover, because the crossover gets stuck in the
>> mud more than a Hummer.
>> 
>> 
>> Scott
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> 
>> From: "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com
> <mailto:atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com>>
>> To: "ALE" <ale at ale.org <mailto:ale at ale.org>> Sent: Monday, March
>> 25, 2013 10:39:11 AM Subject: [ale] semi [OT] making learning
>> ruby programming fun?
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> As some of you know who've been following my prior threads, I've
>> had a long time interest in learning a modern programming
>> language. I've had difficulty putting the proper time into the
>> studies, but I'm always genuinely interested in the information I
>> learn here. Leam had convinced me that GO was a great language,
>> and I believe it is. I was going to tackle that, but I have
>> misgivings about its lack of popularity in the market place.
>> 
>> According to:
>> 
>> http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
>> 
>> GO ranks between 51 and 100 in usage, and the percentage is so
>> low it's not listed. So, like it or not, learning GO might be a
>> skill few people want. I decided to defer that.
>> 
>> Most recently, I decided to learn the specific language of the 
>> MetaTrader currency trading platform so I can build a tradebot. I
>> am working on that slowly. Unless I get really good, it is
>> unlikely someone will hire me for that. The objective would be
>> for the tradebot to make money using my own account.
>> 
>> So, I still have an interest in learning a general programming 
>> language.
>> 
>> I'm interested in a modern garbage collected language, preferably
>> multi paradigm, with safe I/O and system calls, that can be
>> compiled, and that doesn't care about white space.
>> 
>> See this comparison:
>> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_programming_languages
>> 
>> I've chosen Ruby as my project language.
>> 
>> According to the link posted above, the top 10 languages, and
>> some of the reasons I've rejected some of them, are as follows.
>> No offense is intended to anyone that programs in these
>> languages.
>> 
>> 01) Java - security problems
>> 
>> 02) C - not modern garbage collected
>> 
>> 03) Objective C - Apple centric primarily
>> 
>> 04) C++ - not modern garbage collected
>> 
>> 05) C# - MS centric primarily
>> 
>> ------------
>> 
>> 06) PHP - security problems per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php 
>> "About 30% of all vulnerabilities listed on the National
>> Vulnerability Database are linked to PHP."
>> 
>> 07) VB - MS centric
>> 
>> 08) Python - cares about white space
>> 
>> 09) Ruby - This is my choice.
>> 
>> 10) Perl - does not have safe I/O and system calls per 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_programming_languages
>> 
>> -------------
>> 
>> So, having said all that, I have some Ruby questions.
>> 
>> A) I have the "PickAxe" book on Ruby 1.9 by Dave Thomas. Is that
>> a good resource for learning, or do I need to upgrade to a Ruby
>> 2.0 book now that version 2 is out?
>> 
>> B) Does anyone have any experience compiling Ruby either through 
>> Rubinius or JRuby or otherwise?
>> 
>> See
>> http://patshaughnessy.net/2012/2/15/is-ruby-interpreted-or-compiled
>
>> 
> 
>> 
>> Finally, I've observed that reading one of these programming
>> books is about as much fun as reading the US tax code. You get a
>> thousand little examples of things like using for next loops to
>> do a factorial. Now that's exciting. I've seen maybe 1 of 100
>> books, primarily from Deitel and Deitel or the Head First series,
>> that make learning programming fun. They present you with real
>> world applications, simplified, that are interesting. They let
>> you get something you can interact with on the screen quickly and
>> work on learning how it works and tweaking it. For example, a
>> simulator of an ATM machine. An actual working realistic 
>> program.
>> 
>> C) So, does ANYONE know of a Ruby book that would make learning
>> the language FUN, or at least moderately interesting?
>> 
>> As always, any help is appreciated.
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> 
>> Ron
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and
>> K-9 Mail. Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the
>> touch screen.
>> 
>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might
>> want to
>> 
>> call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
>> energy
>> 
>> mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages
>> very quickly.)
>> 
>> Ron Frazier 770-205-9422 <tel:770-205-9422> (O) Leave a message. 
>> linuxdude AT techstarship.com <http://techstarship.com>
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> 
> 
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> 
> 
> --
> 
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and 
> K-9 Mail. Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the
> touch screen.
> 
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might
> want to call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from
> alternate energy mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new
> email messages very quickly.)
> 
> Ron Frazier 770-205-9422 <tel:770-205-9422> (O)   Leave a message. 
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com <http://techstarship.com>
> 
> 
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