On Friday 27 November 2009 05:00:32 pm Ralph Shnelvar wrote:
> I am clueless what all of the above does.  It is WAY over my head.

I don't really know what to say, then, other than:

What is it you don't get?

I don't mean to be cruel, but there isn't a technical question in here -- not 
really something that I can answer. Instead, all you have is this:

> How would I go about deciphering the meaning of what you wrote, above?

Ask me, or ask the group. But ask something specific.

For example: Is it that you don't understand what I'm doing with 'def 
self.whatever'? Or is it that you don't understand what self.class is? Or are 
the words "Foo" and "bar" confusing? Maybe it was += that threw you off?

I could go through and attempt to explain every detail of how it works, and I 
could probably do a good job, but it'd be a lot of effort on my part (better 
spent writing a "how to program" book), and you'd probably find it pretty 
condescending.

Also: Open up irb and mess around. See what happens. For example, type this 
into your irb shell:

class Foo
  self
end

What does that return? Did you learn anything?

In other words: One very good way to learn is through experimentation. Run the 
examples I've given and see what they do. Run them in a debugger, or sprinkle 
a few 'puts' statements to see what's going on. Run them in irb, and play with 
different versions of them.