[ANN] Forthcoming 2nd ed. of _The Ruby Way_

ruby-talk
61

Hi --

I have high expectations for David Black's forthcoming book. I'd be
hard pressed to name another person I'd like to see a Ruby book from.

The book is called "Ruby for Rails" and the subtitle is "The Ruby you
need to master Rails". David Black is a great candidate to write that
Advanced Ruby book I wish existed, but I don't think it's this one. I
hope I'm wrong though.

Hmmm... that subtitle is actually a bit off: it's "Ruby techniques for
Rails developers" (as per the cover), though I see that it's listed
the way you've got it on at least one website. I'll put the official
version in my sig :slight_smile:

In any case, the book is basically written for the "coming to Ruby
through Rails" constituency, broadly speaking. It covers some (not
all) of the topics that are coming up on people's table of contents
ideas for advanced Ruby. I think that's partly because of my belief
that some in things in Ruby, while certainly in a sense advanced, are
more accessible and learnable than their reputations sometimes
suggest. So, while working from the basics, I don't hesitate to aim
fairly high.

David

···

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Gavri Fernandez wrote:

On 12/16/05, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:

--
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net

"Ruby for Rails: Ruby techniques for Rails developers", forthcoming from Manning Publications, April 2006!

62

* It is indeed great for publishers, because they get consumers to commit cash early, where waiting for the book to be finished risks potential buyers opting to spend their money elsewhere. First to market has a big advantage. But how does the buyer "return" and get a refund for a PDF download?

I think that the problem here is that with digital content of any kind, the protections that you enjoy as a consumer are usually obsoleted by the goods being digital. <totally off topic here>

I can go into a shop and buy a packaged application (for me it'd most likely be a game, lets say Civ IV as it's new and happening), then a week later I take it back. Suddenly the store won't accept it and my consumer protections that are valid for say a lawnmower or a washing machine are no longer valid for a computer game. Obviously I understand the reasoning as games can (and often are) pirated, so essentially the shops don't trust their consumers when it comes to digital goods, but with physical products it's ok

My favourite quote (to finish with this off-topic-ness) comes from Bruce Schneier -"Making digital files not copyable is like making *water not wet*"

</totally off topic here>

63

Shifting the focus of the thread a little bit, but what would your
idea table of contents look like in an Advanced Ruby book?

Off the top of my head randomly ordered:

* Variable Scope
* Regular Expressions
* Unit Testing

  * Integration Testing
  * User Interface testing (Web, GUI)
  {

* Module
* Class

  } Probably rolled together =>
  * OO design practices in Ruby (Design pattern 'thumbnails', etc)

* Metaprogramming
* Domain Specific Languages

    * including Parsers, XML, YAML, etc
  * Functional, logic, and Aspect oriented programming in Ruby

* Continuations

    * including Continuation Passing style

* Threads and Processes

    * Can you pass some of the work to Unix (an OS really geared up
      for threads and procs)? And what to do if you are on VMS,
      Windows, or others.

* Extensions
* Embedding Ruby

  * Security, $SAFE in depth, [cryptography, hashing].intro
  * Performance, benchmarking, profiling, and data structure
    selection advice
  * Ruby as a tool to aid ruby development:
     Project automation, version control, ruby within and
     around your favourite editor, documentation (RD, RDoc,
     PDFs, and LaTeX) tools, and what scripting
     might help in the developent process.

Packaged as an electronic book because the paper version would
be too big!

pth

        Hugh

···

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Patrick Hurley wrote:

64

Bill Guindon wrote:
..

> I'm sure you know all of this, but just the same...
>
> You should point them to the success of AWDWROR [1]. It certainly is
> a new/controversial idea, but it seems to be win/win.

Some counterpoints for consideration:

* In contrast to offering a free online version (if even only prior to
publication) the pay-to-preview approach means you get fewer eyeballs
and have fewer bug reports & suggestions prior to publication.
Open-to-all improves quality.

Without a doubt, it would, but I think it would be a tough sell to
publishers who seem to be convinced that it would reduce future sales.
Pay-to-preview may mean fewer eyeballs than a free preview, but it's
more eyeballs than no preview (the traditional approach).

* It is indeed great for publishers, because they get consumers to
commit cash early, where waiting for the book to be finished risks
potential buyers opting to spend their money elsewhere. First to
market has a big advantage. But how does the buyer "return" and get a
refund for a PDF download?

I don't pretend to have the answer to that one. Others far smarter
than me have been stumped by it for decades.

Currently, return policies are up to the producer of the content. As
long as they make that policy known, I can make an informed choice
when I decide whether or not to buy a digital version.

Over the years, I've bought many books, but only a few PDFs. I
haven't wanted to return any of them. For now, I'm really not all
that concerned about return policies -- but that's just me.

···

On 12/15/05, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:

James

--

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
Ruby Code & Style - Ruby Code & Style: Writers wanted
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

--
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)

65

Here on the ruby-talk list we've all gone through the pickaxe book and I've gone through
most of the first Ruby Way. So you're not necessarily asking the Ruby-Nuby group you
might be pointing your book at...

What I wanted and did not have was a good set of exercises to train my mind into the new
mold. Sort of "using the blah feature, figure out a way to code a whatever function" type
of question and about half of them should have answers. I guess what I want is the Ruby
equivalent of the "C Puzzle Book" which is what made me an upper tier C programmer. The C
Puzzle Book was very educational because for each topic it gave simple questions and
answers, and each succeeding question was just a little bit more sophisticated so by the
time you finished a chapter you were expert in that area.

You could add a series of exercises to the end of each chapter. And put most of the
answers online where you would also have ads so you can make even more money. Knuth has
exercises at the end of each of his chapters and his books are ever-popular classics.

There are core libraries that have stood the test of time and must be included. What I
want in the library area though, is a set of rules and maybe programming exercises that
enable me to become a top-tier writer of Ruby libraries. What, for example, is the Ruby
answer to the versioning questions? (You know, when the new version of the base class has
a new method with the same name as a method in a derived class I'm already using...)

Warren Seltzer

66

Bill Guindon wrote:

Bill Guindon wrote:
..

I'm sure you know all of this, but just the same...

You should point them to the success of AWDWROR [1]. It certainly is
a new/controversial idea, but it seems to be win/win.

Some counterpoints for consideration:

* In contrast to offering a free online version (if even only prior to
publication) the pay-to-preview approach means you get fewer eyeballs
and have fewer bug reports & suggestions prior to publication.
Open-to-all improves quality.

Without a doubt, it would, but I think it would be a tough sell to
publishers who seem to be convinced that it would reduce future sales.
Pay-to-preview may mean fewer eyeballs than a free preview, but it's
more eyeballs than no preview (the traditional approach).

I've had authors tell me they would never again offer a book for free online. Yet others swear by it. It is not uncommon for O'Reily to offer current books online for free (as part of their Open Books project), and Bruce Eckel seems pleased with is results. APress offers Practical Common Lisp for free, too. (Good book!) And Mark Watson is currently working on a Ruby book that he says will be available as a free PDF.

It's not that unusual; it is perhaps something of a tradition of its own in geek publishing. But, yes, if you are tying to lock down every dollar, it may be too much of a risk. It's a business, and people have to find the model that gets them the results they want.

James

···

On 12/15/05, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:

--

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
Ruby Code & Style - Ruby Code & Style: Writers wanted
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

67

I tend to think that a reduction in future sales isn't so much what
they're worried about, even if publishers say it is. Most people with
that kind of decision-making authority at a successful publishing house
are smart enough to see the advertising potential and product
improvement potential in pre-releasing an incomplete or unpolished work,
if you point it out to them and make a halfway decent case for it. Yes,
there's some risk of reduced sales, but it's miniscule in comparison
with the potential return in increased sales, especially if there is
secific material that will only be available in the paid-for version
still to come.

What it really boils down to, I think, is the common desire to get
dollars from everyone who would be willing to part with them. The "lost
sales" they worry about likely aren't really any reduction in total
number of sales: handled even semi-competently, you can gain more sales
than you'd lose by doing an electronic pre-release, even for free. With
current intellectual property laws and expectations in the US, however,
people in IP-related industries just have a problem tolerating the
thought that anyone got to "experience" what they're selling without
paying for it, regardless of whether that actually hurts revenue
streams.

Obviously, there are exceptions, and thank goodness O'Reilly is one of
them. A personal example of an exception working out in the publisher's
favor is the Pragmatic Programmers' Ruby books: I used wget to download
a copy of the Pickaxe book so that I'd always have it handy whether
online or not. After reading it, I was inspired to pick up a copy of
their Rails book, for which I shelled out cover price (minus my member
discount at the bookstore). I'm now planning to pick up the Pickaxe2,
again for cover price (minus the member's discount at the bookstore).

This may not work as well for fiction (for instance), but I'm not really
interested in electronic copies of novels anyway. It sure as heck works
for technical references, though.

···

On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 11:12:32PM +0900, Bill Guindon wrote:

Without a doubt, it would, but I think it would be a tough sell to
publishers who seem to be convinced that it would reduce future sales.
Pay-to-preview may mean fewer eyeballs than a free preview, but it's
more eyeballs than no preview (the traditional approach).

--
Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]

unix virus: If you're using a unixlike OS, please forward
this to 20 others and erase your system partition.

68

Warren Seltzer wrote:

Here on the ruby-talk list we've all gone through the pickaxe book

Doubtful. There are newcomers on this list all the time, people who may not even *know* of Programming Ruby, let around have read it.

I don't want anyone on this list getting the impression that they may be out of their league or in some way do not belong here.

We're a varied lot, so it's hard to make generalizations on experience.

Dear Nuby: Please speak up and ask lots of questions.

James

···

--

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
Ruby Code & Style - Ruby Code & Style: Writers wanted
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools

69

Here on the ruby-talk list we've all gone through the pickaxe book

Still waiting to get my hands on the print version though (just as soon as I can get to a bookshop now :))

I guess what I want is the Ruby
equivalent of the "C Puzzle Book" which is what made me an upper tier C programmer.

Not exactly the same, but I'm looking forward to 'Best of Ruby Quiz' in April...

···

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 17:20:02 -0000, Warren Seltzer <warrens@actcom.net.il> wrote:

--
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.remove.co.uk

70

James Britt wrote:

Bill Guindon wrote:

Bill Guindon wrote:
..

I'm sure you know all of this, but just the same...

You should point them to the success of AWDWROR [1]. It certainly is
a new/controversial idea, but it seems to be win/win.

Some counterpoints for consideration:

* In contrast to offering a free online version (if even only prior to
publication) the pay-to-preview approach means you get fewer eyeballs
and have fewer bug reports & suggestions prior to publication.
Open-to-all improves quality.

Without a doubt, it would, but I think it would be a tough sell to
publishers who seem to be convinced that it would reduce future sales.
Pay-to-preview may mean fewer eyeballs than a free preview, but it's
more eyeballs than no preview (the traditional approach).

I've had authors tell me they would never again offer a book for free online. Yet others swear by it. It is not uncommon for O'Reily to offer current books online for free (as part of their Open Books project), and Bruce Eckel seems pleased with is results. APress offers Practical Common Lisp for free, too. (Good book!) And Mark Watson is currently working on a Ruby book that he says will be available as a free PDF.

It's not that unusual; it is perhaps something of a tradition of its own in geek publishing. But, yes, if you are tying to lock down every dollar, it may be too much of a risk. It's a business, and people have to find the model that gets them the results they want.

James

I find that having a print book does several things for me: It lets me get my eyes away from the screen for a while; it gives me something productive to do in planes, trains, and automobiles (Passenger seats only :wink: and it is a nice distraction at times such as during TV commercials or while sitting on the can (Preferable to staring at the wall.)

Because of these many advantages I will usually buy a print book if it is of interest to me even if the same material is available online for free or reduced cost. Having the material online is an added value, though, because I can search it more easily when I need a quick answer at work. Generally, however, I will not pay for an online version, because I would rather have the print version (And I'm certainly not going to pay twice for the same content.)

···

On 12/15/05, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:

71

I second that -- especially since, though I've gone through most of the
electronic pickaxe, I haven't seen Pickaxe 2 yet, and I could probably
stand to read what I have seen a few more times to absorb what's there.
Saying we've all read Pickaxe and giving the impression we're all past
that point now would make me feel a little on the slow-kid side,
frankly.

···

On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 02:53:36AM +0900, James Britt wrote:

Warren Seltzer wrote:
>Here on the ruby-talk list we've all gone through the pickaxe book

Doubtful. There are newcomers on this list all the time, people who may
not even *know* of Programming Ruby, let around have read it.

I don't want anyone on this list getting the impression that they may be
out of their league or in some way do not belong here.

We're a varied lot, so it's hard to make generalizations on experience.

Dear Nuby: Please speak up and ask lots of questions.

--
Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]

unix virus: If you're using a unixlike OS, please forward
this to 20 others and erase your system partition.