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Looking to get into Ruby..


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I've been looking to learn my first programming language, (well first real language) and I've heard a lot of great things about Ruby. I don't have much past experience, unless you count scripting in mIRC and a workable knowledge in HTML/JS something worthy. Before I delve into Ruby, I have a few questions, and was hoping that people with experience might be able to answer them.

1) Do you recommend Ruby as a first language? If not, what other language do you recommend?

2) What are Ruby's 'limitations' so to speak? Is it a fully fledged language in that I can use it to create software/full on program? Or is it more of a complimentary language?

3) Do you have any links to any resources you found invaluable while learning Ruby?

I appreciate any and all help you can give.

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1) I wouldn't recommend a dynamically typed language as an introduction to programming. It gives you a lot of flexibility, but it's better to get used to complying with a static type system as soon as possible, just so that you wrap your mind around that notion. Also, with a statically typed language, you get a lot more feedback from your compiler and IDE about your code and this helps you learn how to code correctly. So I wouldn't recommend Ruby or Python. Try either C#, Java or C++.

2) It's not a system language (you can't write drivers, operating systems, etc), and the performance isn't good enough to write video games, except for the most simple ones. It's however a perfectly fine language for a lot of desktop and web applications. Definitely something to add to your belt at some point.

3) I didn't learn Ruby ( I learned Python which is similar ).

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1) I wouldn't recommend a dynamically typed language as an introduction to programming. It gives you a lot of flexibility, but it's better to get used to complying with a static type system as soon as possible, just so that you wrap your mind around that notion. Also, with a statically typed language, you get a lot more feedback from your compiler and IDE about your code and this helps you learn how to code correctly. So I wouldn't recommend Ruby or Python. Try either C#, Java or C++.

2) It's not a system language (you can't write drivers, operating systems, etc), and the performance isn't good enough to write video games, except for the most simple ones. It's however a perfectly fine language for a lot of desktop and web applications. Definitely something to add to your belt at some point.

3) I didn't learn Ruby ( I learned Python which is similar ).

Hm, thanks for the advice.

I've heard that C++ can be a pain without experience with C/C#. However, I think I'd be interested in possibly learning C# from the little I've read/know about it.

Any helpful links?

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