Note: This article first appeared on 8th Oct. 2009 but the original is not accessible; hence the reprint.

In this brief interview, Satish Talim of RubyLearning talks to Felipe Elias Philipp of Brazil, winner of the first-ever Ruby Programming Challenge For Newbies.

Satish>> Welcome Felipe and thanks for taking out time to share your thoughts. For the benefit of the readers, could you tell us something about your self?

Felipe>> Thanks Satish for the opportunity. Well, about me… I’m a Brazilian guy, a web developer and a Mac user. I’m 22 years old and I started to program at school, since I was 16. Since then, programming has become my life and I can’t imagine myself doing any other thing.

Satish>> How did you get involved with Ruby programming?

Felipe>> I discovered Ruby through Rails on a well-known website by Brazilians: iMasters. I was just amazed as it was so easy to understand the Ruby code and I could solve the problems in a very simple way. This got me very motivated and I became more interested in the subject. At that time, I was working with ASP and I was deciding whether to learn Java or .NET. By then, I had realized that Ruby was simpler and I decided to learn it.

Satish>> Could you name three features of Ruby that you like the most, as compared to other languages? Why?

Felipe>> One of the things that caught my attention was the fact that Ruby is an extremely dynamic language. The way I can open classes and add my own methods is one of the features I like most. Creating DSLs was something I had never seen before and which I found very interesting. These are some of the features I remember at the moment, although I like almost everything in the language.

Satish>> How was experience of taking part in the Ruby Programming Challenge For Newbies (RPCFN)?

Felipe>> Despite knowing Ruby for almost two years, I had never written more than 50 lines of code. I had not found a project that motivated me to practice. However the RPCFN aroused me! Also, I enjoyed the challenge very much. I recommend everybody to take part in the RPCFN. Even if you know the language, there is always something new to learn. I intend to participate in all the forthcoming challenges.

Satish>> What are your future plans?

Felipe>> I want to study Ruby and Rails deeper, and also learn other languages (Python and Erlang are already on my list). In the short ter, I intend to share whatever I learn about Ruby and about programming in general; perhaps starting my own blog or something else.

Thank you Felipe. In case you have any queries and/or questions, kindly post your questions here (as comments to this blog post) and Felipe would be glad to answer.