A few posts ago, I mentioned I have recently been reading lots of different book on programming languages. In conjunction to the books, I’ve started using a programming game alongside some peepcode screencasts to learn Ruby.

It’s really easy to do because it can be done through a git pull then simply:

1. Run start up file (ruby path_to_enligthenment.rb)
2. Read the problem
3. Edit file_failing.rb (in your editor – nano, vim, Textmate etc)
4. Fix line mentioned
5. Test if fixed go back to step 1

The game is played so the more tasks you do, the harder it gets – encouraging you to learn more programming as you are fixing lines and grokking the logic behind it the code.

The project is called Ruby Koans and as you can see from the screengrab, I’ve just started and have reached 5 out of 269 tests thus far.

Have you been using any different methods of learning a language? Are there any other similar ones for other languages out there? Let me know!