I second this. I’m not a complete beginner - I have some perl
experience but I come from a non-technical background and haven’t ever
studied computer science. I too nearly didn’t buy the book because I
just don’t trust anything that claims to teach you something within a
fixed amount of time. However I’m glad that I did as it was well
written (even made me laugh in a few places), covered a lot of bases and
has the only explanation of recursion that I’ve actually understood in
the (not a few) programming books I’ve read.
I should say I’m glad I own The Ruby Way and Programming Ruby too but of
the 3 this is the book best pitched at novices.
Jon
···
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Vondung [mailto:mvondung@gmx.net]
Sent: 05 December 2002 15:14
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: About the Ruby book for beginners discussion …
I mentioned this in response to another message (I wish the mailing
list would produce correct message threading), but would like to point
it out in an extra message:
There already is an excellent book for beginners: Mark Slagell’s
“Teach yourself Ruby in 21 days”. The title of the book is a definite
turn-off, but the content is, in my opinion as “newbie” to both Ruby
and programming (unless you count being fluent in various Basic
dialects 10+ years ago), very valuable to a beginner. The author
introduces Ruby, OO and programming concepts gently and the learning
curve is fairly mild (at least in the first few chapters).
Those who work on an online book for beginners (I understand that this
is the goal? Or is it going to be a printed book?) might want to
glance at Mark’s work. It is probably boring for experienced
programmers, but from my perspective as novice it has been an
incredible help and I doubt I would have put effort into learning Ruby
without this book (because I simply wouldn’t have known where and how
to start).
-M.
To e-mail: use the initials of my name and add “at felinism dot com”.
This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star Internet. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered
through the MessageLabs Virus Control Centre. For further information visit
Any views or personal opinions expressed within this email may not be those of Talis Information Ltd.
The content of this email message and any files that may be attached are confidential, and for the usage of the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, then please return this message to the sender and delete it. Any use of this e-mail by an unauthorised recipient is prohibited.