I've been learning the Ruby programming language lately thanks to a recommendation from apotheon, and I have to say I am impressed. A truly powerful and concise (right, apotheon) language it is. I've blogged about it and created some example code that demonstrates many of the features:
There's no better place to start with Rails, as far as I'm aware. It's an excellently written book, by collaboration between the creator of Rails and one of the original Pragmatic Programmers.
Apotheon, you'll appreciate this one: http://www.chipstips.com/microblog/index.php/post/29/ This is a fairly complex but well-circumscribed component that I wrote in three languages: C++, C#, and Ruby. The Ruby code is smaller and more readable, as you would expect.
They say finnish has long words... and that's sort of true. Finnish also has a very high information density though. Some advertising consulting company had a "standard text" that they translate to all languages. And apparently the finnish version is 50% longer than the average. But the thing is, I know how to translate to finnish; and if you do it right you get a ten to twenty percent save compared to the source text, almost every time.
You have to use a completely different information distribution though, finns talk straight.
Thanks to you and apotheon for the links. Gary, your first link is fantastic. Haven't checked out the second one yet, I want to thoroughly digest what's going on in the first one.
If you're asking for technical help, please be sure to include all your system info, including operating system, model number, and any other specifics related to the problem. Also please exercise your best judgment when posting in the forums--revealing personal information such as your e-mail address, telephone number, and address is not recommended.
Ruby Slippers Over the Rainbow
http://www.chipstips.com/microblog/index.php?comment=21
Next I intend to start learning Ruby on Rails. Any advice on how to begin that?