Exploring IronRuby with a C# Perspective

Posted by Robert Bazinet on Jul 25, 2008 12:44 PM

Community

.NET,

Ruby

Topics

.NET Framework ,

Dynamic Languages

Tags

C# ,

IronRuby

Many developers who know a particular programming language and want to learn a second one, often find it the hardest language to learn but subsequent languages being easier.  Any developer who knows C# and has an interest in learning IronRuby can find a tutorial series on learning IronRuby based on knowledge of C# from CodeThinked.

CodeThinked is a web site run by Justin Etheredge who has set out to show developers how to write Ruby from equal C#.  The tutorial series currently has six parts but is ongoing and readers should continue to look for updates.  The first two parts give the basics of getting IronRuby setup and then running some applications with it and the remaining four parts get into the heart of the tutorials.

Getting IronRuby Up and Running

Getting IronRuby Up and Running gives a good walk-through on how to get the source code from IronRuby.com using SubVersion and proceed to build IronRuby from source using Visual Studio 2008.

Getting IronRuby built and run successfully has some possible issues associated with it and Justin handles all of the scenarios he came up against, explains what they are and how to get around them.

Running Applications in IronRuby

Running Applications in IronRuby gets the developer started with writing Ruby and running under IronRuby.  The tutorial starts off with everyone's favorite "HelloWorld" application and goes right into showing how to use the newly created class from other classes.

HelloWorld applications are always simple but give developers a way to see a running application with the littlest amount of work.   

Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C#

The tutorials start out with foundational information such as what it means to be a dynamic language.  Justin jumps right into comparing various elements of C# that we use everyday such as the class keyword, building classes in C# and showing how they appear in Ruby.  Various aspects of building classes such as getter and setters, different property types as well as class methods.

The tutorials progress into contrasting iterators such as C# foreach and for loops.  There is always more than one way to solve a problem in Ruby and Justin helps point out what is considered the expected way in Ruby.

All four of the core parts of the tutorial are posted now:

• Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C# Part 1
• Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C# Part 2 
• Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C# Part 3 
• Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C# Part 4

Justin is taking a careful and detailed approach to showing developers parallels between C# and Ruby, his tutorials are well-worth reading.  Later installments in this series on Justin's blog, CodeThinked.

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