About Ruby

ruby-talk
2

Jakob Lenfers wrote:

Hi,

I'm new to Ruby and apart from wanting to learn ruby (and rails), I
chose Ruby as a language I'll have to - mh, in lack of a better word -
analyze this semester.

Welcome and have fun. :slight_smile:

Also I would like to get some general book about ruby. It would be best
if it would include a chapter about Matz motivations and the focus of
ruby. There are sure a lot of pages in the net about that, but a citable
source would be nicer.

Something like O'Reilly's The Ruby Programming Language, co-authored by
Matz? That should be citable, and is more or less a primary source. :wink:

(BTW: What are the requirements for citability in your case?)

I don't know if it contains a chapter about Matz's motivation, but I
think that Programming Ruby touches on that (it could function, together
with the O'Reilly book), as a more in depth documentation. And there's
of course the C source itself.

And maybe Matz' keynote at Rubyconf 2007 helps you out, too?
http://rubyconf2007.confreaks.com/d2t1p8_keynote.html

I hope my question fits in here, I couldn't find indication
otherwise. In case it doesn't, pointer to a better location would be
nice.

Heh, I think it fits just fine. :slight_smile:

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan

:zorkmid: /zork'mid/ n. The canonical unit of currency in
~ hacker-written games. This originated in {zork} but has spread
~ to {nethack} and is referred to in several other games.
~ -- The AI Hackers Dictionary

3

There is no language spec for Ruby. You can look at the spec suite
that's being built as a reference....that's about the closest thing we
have. Of course, you can also look at the parser. :slight_smile:

As for books, I'd recommend "The Ruby Programming Language" since Matz
was involved in authoring it. It's not necessarily the "best"
teaching book, but it's the most up to date and covers more of the
"why."

--Jeremy

···

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Jakob Lenfers <jakob@drss.de> wrote:

Hi,

I'm new to Ruby and apart from wanting to learn ruby (and rails), I
chose Ruby as a language I'll have to - mh, in lack of a better word -
analyze this semester.

Most importantly I would like to know what is the /highest/
documentation for Ruby, some kind of definition? I mean there are
several implementations (Ruby, JRuby, IronRuby, ...), where is
documented what they have to implement? Something similar to
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/j.title.doc.html

Also I would like to get some general book about ruby. It would be best
if it would include a chapter about Matz motivations and the focus of
ruby. There are sure a lot of pages in the net about that, but a citable
source would be nicer.

I hope my question fits in here, I couldn't find indication
otherwise. In case it doesn't, pointer to a better location would be
nice.

TIA, Jakob
P.S. I wasn't around in the usenet quite a while, I hope my config is
     still all right :slight_smile:
--
Lenfi is blogging: Lenfis bLog: <http://blog.jl42.de> (mostly german)

--
http://jeremymcanally.com/
http://entp.com

Read my books:
Ruby in Practice (http://manning.com/mcanally/\)
My free Ruby e-book (http://humblelittlerubybook.com/\)

Or, my blogs:

http://rubyinpractice.com

6

Jakob Lenfers wrote:

Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> writes:

Damn, forgot to tell you that I had an eye on that already. But thanks
for reassuring me. :slight_smile:

No problem. I have yet to get my hands on a copy, myself.

I'm not sure myself. I guess something more reliable than
wikipedia[1]. I guess a book is just fine, a more or less official site
and online documentation should do it too.

I just saw that you are writing from a German address, and I assume that
you are studying in Germany.

Which means, that, basically, anything with an ISBN is fair game, as
long as it provides an "Impressum", too (which should contain author,
title, subtitle if applicable, edition, publisher, year published. If
the book is cataloged in the Deutsche National Bibliothek, there's a
good change that you can use that book).

At least at my old university, online sources were out for the count
(the web is malleable, after all).

[1] Don't get me wrong, I love wikipedia, but you know the problems...

I trust Wikipedia about as far as I can throw its servers..
(They do provide good references, though, which often are worth a look.)

I'll look into that. It's in our library, but you can't borrow it. *grrr*

The first edition is available online for free:
http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/

Note that the 3rd Edition will be published Real Soon Now, with coverage
of Ruby 1.9.

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan

~ - You know you've been hacking too long when...
...you get snail mail, and you think to your self "You have new mail on node
"your_address" from user "name_on_the_frank".

8

Jakob Lenfers wrote:

Which means, that, basically, anything with an ISBN is fair game, as
long as it provides an "Impressum", too (which should contain author,
title, subtitle if applicable, edition, publisher, year published. If
the book is cataloged in the Deutsche National Bibliothek, there's a
good change that you can use that book).

I guess that definition will work for me too.

And I actually meant "chance" and not "change". :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway: It's best to consult the prof/lecturer running your Seminar or
whatever your class is exactly on citation rules for papers.

At worst, you are late to a "Scientific Writing In @program" class. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Nice, that'll help me for now. I'm sure to come back if I got new
questions I can't find the answers to on my self. For now, thanks to
all!

Remember, it is the First Edition, and a good part is outdated (it
refers to Ruby 1.6, current stable release is 1.8, "testing" branch is 1.9)!

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan

~ - You know you've been hacking too long when...
...you want to retract something said in haste, and think C-a C-@ C-e C-w