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RubyMonk

rubymonk.com

95 pointsjfaucett30 comments

Just started getting into Ruby myself, and I used Ruby Koans (http://rubykoans.com).

Without a doubt the quickest I've ever learned a language. It's such a great way to get your feet wet. No explanations, no nothing. Just dive right into the code and start fixing the errors. You learn a surprising amount in a very short period (took me 2 days to finish 200 koans in my free time).

I've searched for similar stuff for other languages as well. Only found for Python so far. So if anyone knows about these type of tuts for other languages, please share. :)

Lua has probably the best "Koans" type problem set I've seen, but they call them "missions": https://github.com/kikito/lua_missions . What really sets the Lua missions apart is that it tells an actually story, of sorts, and there is a genuine moment of enlightenment toward the end.

For Clojure there's the entire functional-koans Github account full of good stuff: https://github.com/functional-koans . Also, don't miss 4Clojure: http://www.4clojure.com/

Awesome, thanks! Will definitely try the Clojure ones after I finish going through SICP. :)

For Python beginners, try these: https://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans

Thanks for sharing Ruby Koans! I like the guidance that RubyMonk provides, but Ruby Koans just goes deeper and asks more of the reader. I wish RubyMonk was more like it in that sense, but I like how RubyMonk doesn't require a page refresh for each code test.

What's better than stuffing garish Share on Twitter/Facebook icons around your content? Overloading highlighted text to share itself when you click it. Very cool.

http://rubymonk.com/learning/books/1/chapters/6-objects/less...

This reminds me of this book I purchased on Kindle a while ago. Every time the author made a remark that he felt was "quote-worthy," he would highlight it and add a link to share it on Twitter or Facebook (hashtags and all).

I returned the book.

I like it. I think it looks and feels much much better than the standard ubiquitous twitter/fb logos.

What was the book?

I actually first found Ruby Monk by searching for "Perl Monk for ruby", so in a way, the name works to their advantage. I know that this site kept coming up on HN radar frequently (in the last year at least) on various occasions, and I am finally glad it has found its own steam at last. :-)

I found Sidu Ponnappa (the guy behind this) to be quite active on many areas/forums/discussion topics (Wonder where/how he finds the time (-: I mean it in a nice way). His blog has some very interesting writings/discussions as well. He's also very vocal about the ongoing state of Indian tech. entrepreneurship, which is quite rare in the current IT ecosystem in India.

I wish him all the very best with all his endeavours.

EDIT: Not associated with them in any way, although the founder appears collaboration worthy IMO ;-)

Wow. Thank you! That's quite a complement, and I'm grateful.

I should point out that much of what I say - or write about - are from conversations with my colleagues. I just happen to be the most vocal among us :)

I like to see a good amount of competition in the field of learning code. Everyone seems to have a different approach to things and I think the more sites like this the better.

This one seems to cater to the reader-types (I'm one of those) so it's sitting nicely with me. Other people I know seem to prefer video + activity (like Code School, etc). Having these kinds of options is really nice.

One critique: the name is great but when I read the domain, I thought of Perl Monks, just ruby flavored. Not sure if that's good or bad -- just an honest response.

Thanks for the feedback (I work at C42 Engineering, the programmers collective behind RubyMonk).

I'd never heard of Perl Monks before you mentioned it - it's something we'll keep in mind. I'm not sure how it will influence us, but it's good to know.

Like I mentioned earlier: I actually first found Ruby Monk by searching for "Perl Monks for ruby", so in a way, the name works to their advantage.

I have never seen such a website combine beauty, interesting, and code study together! I think I will soon be immersed in fun coding!

Great site and lovely with more sites that teaches people code but I have one suggestion. Make it clear what you have to pay for and what you can access for free. At first, I thought the entire site was free but the "Subscribe" page shows that you can pay $10 for something but not what you will pay for. Please make this more obvious.

Noted. Makes sense, and thanks for the feedback.

I'd also make sure the sub information is a bit more clear, but it's a great looking site.

I just stumbled across this site browsing from some other ruby site, and thought it looked nice and others might enjoy, didn't know the makers where on HN - great job @kaiwren :)

No worries, jfaucett. As a bootstrapped startup with no investors and no connections, we need all the PR we can get :)

So thank you for posting this!

RubyMonk rocks!!

Wish there was a HaskellMonk too.. :[

It'll be a while yet, but there's a reason we've bought that domain :)

I'm totally unfamiliar with the "Monk" label so maybe this suggestion is moot...but a page describing the philosophy of the teaching method and who this book is aimed for would be useful. I'm guessing from the first page (http://rubymonk.com/learning/books/1/chapters/6-objects/less...) that this isn't meant for total programming newbies.

Minor point - the quotation at the bottom of the page looks like it's being attributed to Matz.

It is. It's what Matz tweeted after we launched RubyMonk at RubyConf in New Orleans last year. Here's the original tweet he made: https://twitter.com/yukihiro_matz/status/126447696478347265

RubyMonk is awesome, it's really helping me to do things the 'ruby way'

Would be great if it worked on iOS devices. Strange enough, the keyboard doesn't show up when touching a text field.

It's a known issue with the js code editor we're using and is something that we need to fix.

Thanks for the heads up!

how come this site got to the front page? the site been here for over year??

I'm not sure (and I'm not complaining about the publicity :)) - but this is the third time we've made it to HN. Yes, RubyMonk was launched in August 2011, so we've been around for over a year.

Haha. I agree. I mentioned it on my comment too before scrolling down and reading yours. :-)

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