Hi,
I think writing a book is a good idea. There are several topics and examples that can help students and developers in different applications;
I am willing to assist in case you need help,
beast,
al_batuul
···
----- Original Message ----
From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>
To: ruby-talk ML <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Monday, October 8, 2007 2:47:43 AM
Subject: Re: considering writing a book on Ruby/Rails?
On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 08:31:54AM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
John Joyce wrote:
>Far better suggestion is what topics to write books and chapters about!
>
>I suggest a GUI focused Ruby book that covers Qt, Tk, Wx, etc...
>A game / graphics focused Ruby book... (could easily be integrated or
>connected with the GUI book)
>A whole host of Ruby topics could be entire books based on one or two
>classes or modules or gems.
>What we have enough of are books that are broad but not deep.
>As an example: Pro ActiveRecord is a nice one, but an Expert
>ActiveRecord would be better...
>
>Lots of topics to suggest.Agreed ... then again, there are some other good books that don't even
exist:"Up and Running with Nitro and Og"
"Up and Running with Iowa"
"Pragmatic RSpec" (although I hear that's due in beta by the end of the
year)
"ZenTest and Heckle Primer"
"Selenium ..."
"Watir ..."
"Cerberus ..."There are some things Ruby has -- like Rails, Nitro, Iowa, RSpec,
ZenTest, Heckle and many others -- that don't exist in the Perl world.
So you can't say, as you can with Ruby/Tk, "Go learn from the O'Reilly
Perl/Tk book and just translate the syntax from Perl to Ruby and you'll
be on the air".I think the real problem is not that every book on Ruby tells you how to
install it. The real problem is that there doesn't seem to be an actual
paid market for much beyond books about Rails and core Ruby. The other
good stuff, like the things I've listed above, just isn't getting seen.Then again, as a potential author, I'm not going to spend any time
writing about things I don't use. So don't look to me for a Nitro or
Iowa book, or a book about everything you wanted to know about Ruby on
Windows systems.
Actually, as a first step in that direction a "common useful libraries"
book -- perhaps called "prospecting for gems", or something cleverer --
would be excellent. I don't mean a listing: I mean an honest-to-goodness
tutorial/primer on a bunch of great libraries/modules for common tasks.
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
McCloctnick the Lucid: "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your
time waving your hands and hopping when a rock or a club will do."
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