[Ruby Learning]http://rubylearning.com/) has finally decided to jump into offering challenges to support people learning Ruby. I'm a big fan of programming challenges for learning, even if I did miss both the ICFP and Google Code Jam this year. And, I'm a total Ruby Newbie who's been looking for something to dig into.

Hence, the Ruby Programming Challenge for Newbies (RPCFP). The first challenge is to parse a Subtitle file for a video player, and apply a consistent time variance to the entire file. For instance, shift all the times forward (or backward) by 2.5 seconds.

It's a fairly simple problem, even with the requirement to parse command line options, and I know I'm planning on implementing TDD in my solution. A test-first, red-green approach is something I've been meaning to try for a while.

If you're new to programming, or like me and just new to Ruby, this looks like a great opportunity to dip into the language.