I've actually done little Ruby outside of simple text-parsing scripts, Project Euler, and Ruby Quiz (I wrote 300-line data mining program for a charity and a not-quite-finished Lisp interpreter for fun), but I nevertheless consider myself a proficient Rubyist thanks to Ruby Quiz alone. I started by trying a couple of the older quizzes, then later saw that the then-current quiz, #118, was easily within my reach, and then continued from there, and found my skills quickly rising over the next dozen. I really like the Ruby Quiz format for learning programming -- they make it easy to learn a wide variety of skills. If I were working on my own, I'd probably develop a comfort zone in a single area, and rarely venture out of it; RubyQuiz brings diverse areas to me. Even if you're motivated to try
to tackle a new area and you still can't solve it, the summaries do a great job of bringing expert-level code down to beginner level.
Probably the most important part is the comparison; it motivates me to read other people's solutions and contrast them with mine, which was great for introducing me to a variety of libraries and styles.
In summary, the solution for beginners isn't for Ruby Quiz to come down to you. Ruby Quiz already provides what's needed for you to rise up to Ruby Quiz's level.
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From: rick_2047 <rick.chatterbox@gmail.com>
To: ruby-talk ML <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:31:51 AM
Subject: Re: Quizmaster Retiring: Revenge of the Sith
Ok of all the people who are commenting i am perhaps the least
qualified coz i never solved one on my own, but i think this is the
best time to tell people what has been on my mind for a very long
time. But first let me make it clear that i am in no state right now
to take voluteering for what i am suggesting.
I do not know the particular history & culture of quizzes (i say
quizzes because i know about python and perl quiz) but i find it very
common that most of them are like for the stack of people just above
the intermediate level(correct me if its wrong). Nobody seems to be
bothered about those learners just who have just understood the
syntax, conventions and philosophy of ruby. While the quizzes are
great they are of little value for such people (who actually are the
most in need). I always maintained that the best way to learn the
solution is to actually solve the problem. Now i propose that apart
from the regular quiz section we have, we also start a beginner quiz.
You know like quizzes intended for people who are just learning tho
ropes.
I know many of you think that it would be unlikely (specially now that
we lack a proper quiz master altogether) to have something like this.
But think about all those beginners who are left gasping for breath
when they read the first quiz.
On Jan 15, 7:20 am, Tom Link <micat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Likewise, it may be an easier task to do quizzes only monthly, or
> every other week.
I personally think a group of quiz masters would necessarily result in
a greater variation of "quizzes" which would probably make more people
interested in solving the quiz. IMHO a weekly quiz would be better
suited to maintain a general interest. This would probably be easier
to achieve for a group (2+) of quiz masters. You're right though that
such a group would still need somebody who carries the one ring to
bind then all. 
Many thanks for your time and effort you put into the ruby quiz. I
always found it quite interesting to follow the discussion & read the
summary.
