 |
 |
I'll put a rec out for CodeSchool. They started mostly with ruby, but they've expanded into a wide array of courses (only a few of which are free). But they're slick, well thought-through affairs, and Try Ruby/Rails for Zombies is still I think the best introduction to Rails out there. http://www.codeschool.com/ On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Jason Stirnaman <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > I've heard similar good things about Codecademy from a friend who recently > wanted to start learning programming along with his teenage son. It seems > like a good gateway drug :) I introduced my 11-year-old to the > Javascript-based animation tutorials on Khan Academy and he found them > really fun. I have him use IRB to calculate his math homework. I don't care > which, if any, language he prefers. It's more important to me that he's > able to think "under the hood" a bit about computers, data, and what's > possible. > > I've been thinking alot about how to introduce not only my kids, but some > of our cataloging/technical staff to thinking "programmatically" or > "computationally"[1] or whatever you want to call it. For me, Ruby will > likely be the tool - especially since it's so easy to install on Windows > now, too. > > In her wisdom, Diane Hillman (I think), pointed out the need for > catalogers to be able talk to programmers. Personally, that's what I'm > after... to equip people to think about problems, data, and networks > differently, e.g. "No, you really don't have to look up each record > individually in the catalog and check the link", etc. > > > 1. http://www.google.com/edu/computational-thinking/ > > Jason Stirnaman > Digital Projects Librarian > A.R. Dykes Library > University of Kansas Medical Center > 913-588-7319 > > ________________________________________ > From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Matthew > Sherman [[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 10:18 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Getting started with Ruby and library-ish data > (was RE: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I?) > > Getting back to the original point so noting some nice starting tools, I > find http://www.codecademy.com to be a decent starting spot for those of > us > without much computer science background. I am not sure what professional > developers think of the site but I find it a helpful to tutorial to start > getting a basic understanding of scripting, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, > JQuery, APIs, ect. Hope that helps. > > Matt Sherman > > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 7:52 AM, Jason Stirnaman <[log in to unmask] > >wrote: > > > This is a terribly distorted view of Ruby: "If you want to make web > pages, > > learn Ruby", and you don't need to learn Rails to get the benefit of > Ruby's > > awesomeness. But, everyone will have their own opinions. There's no > > accounting for taste. > > > > For anyone interested in learning to program and hack around with library > > data or linked data, here are some places to start (heavily biased toward > > the elegance of Ruby): > > > > http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Working_with_MaRC > > https://delicious.com/jstirnaman/ruby+books > > https://delicious.com/jstirnaman/ruby+tutorials > > http://rdf.rubyforge.org/ > > > > Jason > > > > Jason Stirnaman > > Digital Projects Librarian > > A.R. Dykes Library > > University of Kansas Medical Center > > 913-588-7319 > > > > ________________________________________ > > From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Joe > > Hourcle [[log in to unmask]] > > Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2013 12:52 PM > > To: [log in to unmask] > > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I? > > > > On Feb 17, 2013, at 11:43 AM, John Fereira wrote: > > > > > I have been writing software "professionally" since around 1980 and > > first encounterd perl in the early 1990s of so and have *always* disliked > > it. Last year I had to work on a project that was mostly developed in > > perl and it reminded me how much I disliked it. As a utility language, > and > > one that I think is good for beginning programmers (especially for those > > working in a library) I'd recommend PHP over perl every time. > > > > I'll agree that there are a few aspects of Perl that can be confusing, as > > some functions will change behavior depending on context, and there was a > > lot of bad code examples out there.* > > > > ... but I'd recommend almost any current mainstream language before > > recommending that someone learn PHP. > > > > If you're looking to make web pages, learn Ruby. > > > > If you're doing data cleanup, Perl if it's lots of text, Python if it's > > mostly numbers. > > > > I should also mention that in the early 1990s would have been Perl 4 ... > > and unfortunately, most people who learned Perl never learned Perl 5. > It's > > changed a lot over the years. (just like PHP isn't nearly as insecure as > > it used to be ... and actually supports placeholders so you don't end up > > with SQL injections) > > > > -Joe > > >