"Steve Merrick" <Steve.Merrick / anti-spam.Marconi.com> wrote in message news:<abo09g$8b9$1 / newsfeed.pit.comms.marconi.com>...

> I've tried to learn Ruby, and made some very basic progress, but I'm
> stuck in a mental rut. I can't think of what to use it for, so I can't
> see the point in learning any more about it. Help!! :-)

Unless you have a problem, it can be difficult learning any language. 
Maybe downloading RUDL and making some pretty graphical toys might be
a fun way to get into it...*

http://rudl.froukepc.dhs.org/

Playing with this felt like playing with java applets.

What kind of problems do you normally solve while programming?  Maybe
we could point you to resources in that domain...

~ Patrick

* as a side note, I think ruby would be a great game development
language.  There are the advantages to a rapid development schedule,
and any speed optimizations  / library bindings could be done by
dropping into C....