Intro to Ruby Syllabus (with extra thoughts/clarifications)

• Complete "help" on http://tryruby.org
  • With that basic knowledge, complete some small program using tryruby.org

• Week 1:
  • Introduction to Ruby
    • What is Ruby?
    • How is it different from other languages?  How is it similar?
  • Installing Ruby (instructions for Windows / Mac / Linux users)
  • Guidance on choosing a programmer's editor
  • Introduction to Ruby syntax through small code examples (try to subtly introduce how everything is an object and has methods on it)
    • Numbers
    • Strings
    • Variables
    • Expressions (basic)
    • Operators
    • Methods (basic)
  • Introduction to free/publicly available Ruby documentation
    • http://www.ruby-doc.org/ruby-1.9/index.html
    • Local ri server
  • Homework/classwork: run various code samples using `irb`  Experiment with other language features as they come up.
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting

• Week 2:
  • Introduction more basic data types (again, mostly using code examples)
    • Arrays
    • Hashes
    • Ranges
    • Symbols
    • nil
  • Introduction/review of basic object oriented concepts
    • Classes
    • Class instances
    • Instance variables
    • Instance methods
  • Introduction to Ruby syntax for creating classes
  • Homework/classwork: create a simple class that stores some data (instance variables) and operates on it (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting
  • Introduction to blocks and iterators
  • Homework/classwork: experiement in `irb` (or by creating small scripts in an editor) with blocks and iterators (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting

• Week 3:
  • Review/catchup from weeks 1-2
  • Control statements
    • if / unless
    • case
    • while / until
    • Boolean operators
  • More advanced object oriented concepts
    • Inheritance
    • Overriding
    • Overloading (splat arguments)
    • Access control (public/private/protected)
  • Homework/classwork: some practical example that shows inheritance, etc... (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting

• Week 4:
  • Overview of the Ruby standard library
    • http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/
  • File I/O in Ruby (including ability to fetch from the web)
  • Homework/classwork: create a Ruby program to read and/or write from a file and/or web (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting
  • Modules
    • Mixins
  • Accepting blocks in methods
  • Homework/classwork: either create a simple module to mixin to a class or create a class that mixes in a module (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting

• Week 5:
  • Review/catchup from weeks 3-4
  • Open classes / monkey patching
  • Exceptions
    • Handling
    • Raising
  • Homework/classwork: TBD
  • Introduction to RubyGems
  • Homework/classwork: create a program that requires installing and including a gem (specifics TBD)
    • Discuss in chat room/sync meeting

• Week 6:
  • Unit testing with Test::Unit
  • Homework/classwork: complete the Ruby Koans
    • https://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koans
    • Do as many as possible independently, but meet in chat room/sync meeting to discuss ones that caused folks trouble
  • If time allows, high level overview of metaprogramming
    • Won't aim for full understanding, but maybe spur some folks to do some research to better understand all that is possible in Ruby

• Topics Intentionally Left Out
  • Regular expressions
    • The regex operator in Ruby is very convenient, but I don't want to get bogged down trying to teach regular expressions themselves.  If a student knows regular expressions or learns them in the future, applying them to Ruby is pretty trivial.
  • Threads/fibers
    • Advanced topic and not very applicable to the potential follow on Rails course
  • Throw/catch
    • Not used enough to focus on; trivial to learn later if required
  • Duck typing
    • I'd like to throw this concept in somewhere, but not sure where yet .. if we don't get to it, I think it'll be OK though