Code Clinic: Ruby

Explore solutions to common Ruby programming challenges, and compare the results with other programming languages, in the Code Clinic series.

Many successful programmers know more than just a computer language. They also know how to think about solving problems. They use "computational thinking": breaking a problem down into segments that lend themselves to technical solutions. Code Clinic is a series of six courses where authors solve the same problems using different programming languages. Here, Kevin Skoglund works with Ruby.

Kevin introduces challenges and provides an overview of his solutions in Ruby. Challenges include topics such as statistical analysis, searching directories for images, and accessing peripheral devices.

Visit other courses in the series to see how to solve the exact same challenges in languages like C#, C++, Java, PHP, and Python.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know before starting this course
• Using the exercise files
• Getting the most from Code Clinic

Problem One: Statistical Analysis

• Introducing Lake Pend Oreille
• Overview of my solution
• Accepting user input
• Validating user input
• Retrieving remote data
• Data calculations
• Output results
• API

Problem Two: Image Analysis

• Introducing image analysis
• Hints, tips, and tricks
• Overview of my solution
• ImageMatcher
• Matching exact pixels
• Matching similar pixels
• Determining the best match
• Optimizations
• Matching with OpenCV

Problem Three: Eight Queens

• Eight Queens problem
• Hints, tips, and tricks
• Overview of my solution
• Queen and board classes
• Displaying the board
• Determining safe positions
• Using loops
• Loops with backtracking
• Loops with smarter backtracking
• Recursion primer
• Using recursion
• Finding all possible solutions
• Further exercises

Problem Four: Accessing Peripherals

• Accessing peripherals problem
• Hints, tips, and tricks
• Overview of my solution
• Installing Gosu
• Creating PitchMaker
• Adding an indicator
• Starting and stopping the tone
• Changing volume
• Changing pitch
• Piano: Using semitone pitches

Problem Five: Recursion and Directories

• Introduction
• Hints, tips, and tricks
• Overview of my solution
• Making a plan
• Finding images with recursion
• Finding images a simpler way
• Install exiftools
• Inspect images for metadata
• Organize images by caption

Problem Six: Building the Web

• A templating problem
• Hints, tips, and tricks
• Overview of my solution
• Parsing CSV files
• ERB templating
• CurriculumMaker
• Parsing course data
• Creating an ERB template
• Using the ERB template
• Savings results to a new file