[Lemur]

Note that I'm still working on the name for this series, but some of my friends have asked me about learning programming for the first time, or learning Ruby itself. I've decided to start teaching an independent class on the Ruby programming language.

Of course, this will start at a very basic level considering some of the requesting party have absolutely no background in programming. There will be progression into more advanced tutorials on the subject matter, but such matters will be covered in later tutorials.

At this point I'm starting to outline ideas and recruit local students to the class. I may see if I can loan out a conference room at my College.

A few questions though:

• What would you like to see in this course?
  
• What are some options for Podcasting that allow for comments?
  
• Would anyone be willing to chip in on more advanced tutorials as guest speakers?

This course will be for free, and hey, if you live in the Joplin Missouri area around MSSU, feel free to join us. Shoot me a PM when we start lessons.

[Sergio Tapia]

What would you like to see in this course?

The Big Kahuna question: Why use a language like Ruby if other more mature languages exist such as C# or Java?

Showcase some of the robust diverse ecosystem of libraries available for Ruby. I was amazed last week. I wrote a script that uncompressed a .zip file, converted a PowerPoint presentation to a .PDF and each slide to a .PNG, and converted .mp3 files to .ogg files - in 30 minutes. Ruby has some serious library power, it's astonishing. Show them the light.

Showcase the usage of blocks and how they can make code more expressive and easy to read.

What are some options for Podcasting that allow for comments?

http://www.makeuseof...ment-platforms/

Google+ Hangouts seems pretty sweet.

Would anyone be willing to chip in on more advanced tutorials as guest speakers?

I'd love to help out, Ruby is my mistress (C# is the wife).

[Lemur]

I'm hearing about Skitch and Jing as some interesting tools to play with. I'll take a look into them.

Fair warning, the first 2 lessons/episodes are going to be from-the-ground basics for the new people. Think of them as syntax tips and review for more advanced members.

[NotarySojac]

Lemur, on 11 September 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

I'm hearing about Skitch and Jing as some interesting tools to play with. I'll take a look into them.

Fair warning, the first 2 lessons/episodes are going to be from-the-ground basics for the new people. Think of them as syntax tips and review for more advanced members.

Hey, I love podcasts. Will this one be an audio only podcast, a slide show style podcast or a full on vidcast?

I'd might be able to chip in on a 'gem building' episode if you'd like. I've had a half written ascii tut laying around for a while and have always wanted to just do a youtube on it instead because there's so much visual structure to gems that works best if you see it on the screen with someones file browser there going through all the files.

[Lemur]

It's going to be vid/slides/code. If I can manage to get a hold of a college room and a white board I'll be set.

[NotarySojac]

That's great, I can't wait to see them as you push them out.

I kept notes when I first got into ruby. I like to think that our perspectives of a language when we initially dig into it is important to have addressed. But as we master the language, we forget our initial perspectives and then it becomes harding to teach new programmers. I think I read a study on that, but anyway maybe some of my old notes might give you some ideas/ save you some typing when you're going over the basics.

https://github.com/T...y/301_loops.txt

https://github.com/T...trol%20flow.txt

https://github.com/T...201_classes.txt

Be on gaurd for inaccuracies though, I haven't scrutinized some of the files in that repo in a long while.

This post has been edited by NotarySojac: 14 September 2012 - 10:05 PM

[Sho Ke]

Sounds like a great idea. Will the uploaded podcasts be uploaded on your site, or here at DIC?

[Lemur]

I can't exactly upload video here. Probably on YouTube to start out.