[Question] Best place to learn ruby?

[pspdude]

Well, I know the basics of a lot of programming languages, but I usually stay with JavaScript and C#, mostly because I use Unity3D a lot. But I've been looking into playing around with essentials for awhile. I used to do some ROM hacking, but I never really it.

Thanks
-Pspdude

[Maruno]

At Uni, I learned the basics of Fortran95 and IDL. I then learned practically everything about RGSS from studying Essentials, and using Google to answer a few of the more conceptual questions. The Stack Overflow website is good for that.

The best way to learn is by doing. Find an easy script (I suggest the Trainer Card and/or Pokégear) and analyse it up, down and backwards until you can make sense of it. Then try something else.

Pick an aspect of Essentials you want to learn about (e.g. Pokérus, or choosing the species of a wild encounter, or fishing), and find and analyse the relevant code. I think it's best to know what something does (at least vaguely) before reading its code to find out how it does it. It's also good to pick a particular topic, rather than browse aimlessly.

[KitsuneKouta]

I can second everything that Maruno said here. I too learned Ruby and RGSS from messing around with Essentials, and I likewise found the Trainer Card to be a great place to start because of how short and straightforward the code is. I started with next to zero programming knowledge (I had maybe two classes on programming when I started here: principles of programming [just logic structures] and a basic C# class all done in the console), but Ruby is highly readable so learning it is a breeze (if you've got C# figured out, you'll find that Ruby is much easier).

I also suggest that you try out making some code from scratch once you have a feel for Ruby's syntax. Just start small, and add bits here and there as you feel comfortable. There's no use trying to make something amazing in one go. An easy one I found to start with is menus. Start by displaying the background image, practice drawing text, and add logic to it bit by bit (using conditional statements, global variables, or what have you). It may take some time to memorize the common classes, methods, and modules you'll be using in Essentials though. After all, there's an awful lot to work with. That's the only difficult part in my opinion. In all honesty, tutorials won't do a whole lot for you. They've never helped me much anyways.

[pspdude]

Thanks guys, I'll put this into good use

[fiOWNya]

Also, if you are a total beginner with Ruby, it may be worth checking out http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/ which has a bunch of the basics so that you can learn the terminology and how things generally fit together.

[IceGod64]

I went into essentials knowing positively nothing about Ruby or RGSS, and nearly everything I know now is just by expirimenting.

Basically, I echo what Maruno and KitsuneKouta already said - the best way to learn RGSS is by doing.