Making a scripting tutorial

[Vincent Foley]

Hello everyone,

I am part of a Linux User Group in Quebec, and I would like to make a
presentation one day about Ruby. Since most people there are not
programmers, but mostly system administrators and that most of them
know nothing about scripting beyond piping a command into grep, I
thought it would be a nice opportunity to show them Ruby and how it can
help them in their everyday tasks.

Now, I would like to know, what sort of material I should cover for an
introduction? Is there already material out there that I could ues? I
will definitly need an introduction to Ruby, its syntax, etc. that is
as concise and clear as possible. My plan of the tutorial right now
would be something along the lines of:

- Running a Ruby program and using irb
- Basic classes (Integer, Array, String)
- Showing how to do input/output with gets and puts
- Showing how to do file and directory operations
- Conditionals and loops (probably limit it to if, while and for x in)
- Using regular expressions*
- Useful modules (Net::Http, Net::SSH, Net::FTP, anything else that
would be useful for sysadmin?)
- Have one or two practical scripts

* could be skipped if the rest is too long

How does that sound? Is there stuff I'm forgetting that I should
mention? Is it too long for just a first introduction? Or good
enough, and if they're interested, they can buy the Pickaxe and ask
questions?

Thanks for the input,

Vincent.

[James Britt]

Vincent Foley wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am part of a Linux User Group in Quebec, and I would like to make a
> presentation one day about Ruby. Since most people there are not
> programmers, but mostly system administrators and that most of them
> know nothing about scripting beyond piping a command into grep, I
> thought it would be a nice opportunity to show them Ruby and how it can
> help them in their everyday tasks.
>
> Now, I would like to know, what sort of material I should cover for an
> introduction? Is there already material out there that I could ues? I
> will definitly need an introduction to Ruby, its syntax, etc. that is
> as concise and clear as possible. My plan of the tutorial right now
> would be something along the lines of:

Over how many days? You've listed quite a bit of material to present to
non-programmers.

You might do best to show enough about scripting in general, very
high-level, and some Ruby in particular, so as to generate interest in
further exploration.

James

--

http://www.ruby-doc.org - The Ruby Documentation Site
http://www.rubyxml.com - News, Articles, and Listings for Ruby & XML
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys

[Bill Guindon]

On 5/24/05, James Britt <jam...@neurogami.com> wrote:
> Vincent Foley wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I am part of a Linux User Group in Quebec, and I would like to make a
> > presentation one day about Ruby. Since most people there are not
> > programmers, but mostly system administrators and that most of them
> > know nothing about scripting beyond piping a command into grep, I
> > thought it would be a nice opportunity to show them Ruby and how it can
> > help them in their everyday tasks.
> >
> > Now, I would like to know, what sort of material I should cover for an
> > introduction? Is there already material out there that I could ues? I
> > will definitly need an introduction to Ruby, its syntax, etc. that is
> > as concise and clear as possible. My plan of the tutorial right now
> > would be something along the lines of:
>
> Over how many days? You've listed quite a bit of material to present to
> non-programmers.
>
> You might do best to show enough about scripting in general, very
> high-level, and some Ruby in particular, so as to generate interest in
> further exploration.

I'm inclined to agree. You can get a good 'non-programmer' start here:
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=Contents

> James
>
>
> --
>
> http://www.ruby-doc.org - The Ruby Documentation Site
> http://www.rubyxml.com - News, Articles, and Listings for Ruby & XML
> http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
> http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
>
>

--
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)

[Assaph Mehr]

Hi Vincent,

Vincent Foley wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am part of a Linux User Group in Quebec, and I would like to make a
> presentation one day about Ruby. Since most people there are not
> programmers, but mostly system administrators and that most of them
> know nothing about scripting beyond piping a command into grep, I
> thought it would be a nice opportunity to show them Ruby and how it
can
> help them in their everyday tasks.

Take a look at the WhyRuby wiki (http://whyruby.rubyforge.org) - it
contains a collection of presentations and links for advocating Ruby,
some of which may be useful for you.

HTH,
Assaph

[Henrik Horneber]

>>help them in their everyday tasks.
>
>
> Take a look at the WhyRuby wiki (http://whyruby.rubyforge.org) - it
> contains a collection of presentations and links for advocating Ruby,
> some of which may be useful for you.
>

I found
http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/wearingRubySlippersToWork.html
pretty helpful as a starter for sysadmin-like guys (even though they're
going to prefer find & grep anyway).

regards,
Henrik

[Vincent Foley]

I was thinking in a period of about two hours. Like I said, I want to
run this by the newsgroups in case someone has already done something
like that. I was also thinking of an all-example presentation, where
you explain the bits as you go along.

[Brian Schröder]

I'd say it is impossible to do what you want to do in just two hours.
You need to deploy only some hooks, and hope that they will pick up.
Maybe some simple administration task automated with ruby in a
detailed step by step walkthrough.

I did a four days * fours hours course about ruby
http://ruby.brian-schroeder.de/course/ once and time is always in
short supply.

best regards,

Brian Schröder

--
http://ruby.brian-schroeder.de/

Stringed instrument chords: http://chordlist.brian-schroeder.de/

[Robert Klemme]

There are quite some tutorials out there - you can easily find them with
Ggl

http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
http://www.ruby.ch/tutorial/
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ruby-doc-bundle/Tutorial/
http://ruby.brian-schroeder.de/course/

I guess you will find something usable there.

robert

[Curt Hibbs]

Brian Schröder wrote:
> On 24/05/05, Vincent Foley <vfo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I was thinking in a period of about two hours. Like I said, I want to
>>run this by the newsgroups in case someone has already done something
>>like that. I was also thinking of an all-example presentation, where
>>you explain the bits as you go along.
>>
>>
>
>
> I'd say it is impossible to do what you want to do in just two hours.
> You need to deploy only some hooks, and hope that they will pick up.
> Maybe some simple administration task automated with ruby in a
> detailed step by step walkthrough.
>
> I did a four days * fours hours course about ruby
> http://ruby.brian-schroeder.de/course/ once and time is always in
> short supply.

You can also look at the preentations available in the WhyRuby repository:

http://rubyforge.org/docman/?group_id=251

Curt

[gene...@gmail.com]

Metadata: a slide showing how this list is good to newbies.
Unfortunately, ruby-forum.org not quite up yet (get screen shots of old
phpBB ruby-forum.org ?)

Some other collaterals: the wall chart
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/browse/Ntt-ruby+core_Nao-1_Ntk-All_pv-mathomhouse.4631975_No-1_N-0_D-ruby+core

Ryan Davis' Quick ref:
http://www.zenspider.com/Languages/Ruby/QuickRef.html

Also show how the pickax2 is the best indexed software book ever IMO.

[Vincent Foley]

Four days? We meet once a month, I doubt they'll remember something
between each meeting, so something over four months is definitly out,
it should be a one-session thing. I'll ask on the mailing list what
they would like to automize, see if Ruby can do that easily enough and
build material around that. I think the goal would be more to show how
easier and more powerful than bash scripting Ruby can be and give them
the desire to pursue that than to give a complete tutorial on Ruby.

[Brian Schröder]

On 24/05/05, Vincent Foley <vfo...@gmail.com> wrote:

That is exactly what I meant. ;-)

Good luck,

Brian