Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.
Your insight some might find it useful.
-Jimmy
Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I've read it, recommended it, and lent out my copy on a few occasions.
It's great.
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.
While not entirely about the book, I did interview David about it a while
ago:
···
On 6/5/07, finetan@hotmail.com <finetan@hotmail.com> wrote:
Your insight some might find it useful.
-Jimmy
--
thanks,
-pate
-------------------------
Duty makes us do things, Love make us do things well.
http://on-ruby.blogspot.com http://on-erlang.blogspot.com
http://on-soccer.blogspot.com
I think it's a great book, i would highly recommend it *after* reading
and understanding "Agile Development with Ruby on Rails".
It gives you an idea of what Rails does at the Ruby level. I wouldn't
recommend it as first book as i said before, maybe as a third
("Agile..." and a good Ruby book first). It has some great practices
and you will be a better Ruby programmer while doing apps in RoR.
Cheers
···
On 6/5/07, finetan@hotmail.com <finetan@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.Your insight some might find it useful.
unknown wrote:
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.Your insight some might find it useful.
I've read through the book, and, like those above, loved it.
What I got most from it was its *incredibly thorough* explanation of the
concept of 'self' in Ruby. Moments after finishing the chapter on self I
ran to _why's creature code and, line by line, explained exactly what it
was doing. I was so proud of myself. 
One of the above reviewers cited the book as a Pickaxe killer, and I
would tend to agree. While I, too, start with the Pickaxe, I could never
get passed the first hundred pages or so. I primarily used it as a
reference. R4R though was a smooth read through and through. Mr. Black's
knowledge of how Ruby works is top-notch, and an awesome, awesome gift
for anyone serious about developing in Ruby.
···
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.
Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.
I'm pretty enthusiastic about the book. Ruby for Rails, in my opinion, is targeted at someone who is using Rails already and is feeling that it is time to learn Ruby. The book uses Rails as a guide to explaining Ruby. This is really quite unusual for general programming language books. You normally expect to see this when a PL is explained as an embedded language (autolisp in autocad, mel in Maya, come to mind). Trouble is that these books usually limit themselves to what the author thinks is important in the context (autocad, Maya). David didn't do that. He has managed to provide an excellent how to program in Ruby guide within the context of Rails, not just a how-to-use-ruby-while-working-with-rails book. I think that it is better than that actually, David manages to use the context of Rails to improve the presentation. This makes for a really effective learning experience for people familiar with Rails, and merely a really good experience for everyone else. It has the feel of a well done tutorial.
On top of that, there are some really good explanations of interesting aspects of Ruby in the book (e.g. the self/scope discussion, Ruby-style domain specific languages).
It doesn't act as a Ruby reference, you'll need the Pickaxe for that.
Be aware: I'm quoted on the back of the book
Cheers,
Bob
···
On 5-Jun-07, at 1:10 PM, finetan@hotmail.com wrote:
Your insight some might find it useful.
-Jimmy
----
Bob Hutchison -- tumblelog at <http://www.recursive.ca/so/>
Recursive Design Inc. -- weblog at <http://www.recursive.ca/
-- works at <http://www.recursive.ca/>
pat eyler wrote:
Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I've read it, recommended it, and lent out my copy on a few occasions.
It's great.
+1
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.
I made a quick writeup a few months ago:
http://www.rubyrailways.com/the-sadly-neglected-pickaxe-killer/
Cheers,
Peter
···
On 6/5/07, finetan@hotmail.com <finetan@hotmail.com> wrote:
__
http://www.rubyrailways.com :: Ruby and Web2.0 blog
http://scrubyt.org :: Ruby web scraping framework
http://rubykitchensink.ca/ :: The indexed archive of all things Ruby.
That's a good point. I learned things from that explanation myself.
It is a very good book, though it will never kill the Pickaxe for me.
James Edward Gray II
···
On Jun 5, 2007, at 8:24 PM, Daniel Waite wrote:
unknown wrote:
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.Your insight some might find it useful.
I've read through the book, and, like those above, loved it.
What I got most from it was its *incredibly thorough* explanation of the concept of 'self' in Ruby.
Emilio Tagua wrote:
···
On 6/5/07, finetan@hotmail.com <finetan@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi all
Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
perspective.Your insight some might find it useful.
I think it's a great book, i would highly recommend it *after* reading
and understanding "Agile Development with Ruby on Rails".It gives you an idea of what Rails does at the Ruby level. I wouldn't
recommend it as first book as i said before, maybe as a third
("Agile..." and a good Ruby book first). It has some great practices
and you will be a better Ruby programmer while doing apps in RoR.Cheers
Well ... I think you *can* learn both Ruby and Rails from _Ruby for Rails_. Now "Agile" and "Pickaxe" are more or less mandatory as *referenced* once you're developing Ruby or Rails code for a living. But if you know nothing about either, I'd recommend starting with _Ruby for Rails_.
You make it sound as if there was something complex about "self". Makes me wonder whether I am missing something about "self". As far as I can see "self" is an ordinary variable with these additional properties:
- it is automatically set to the current receiver and it cannot be altered by Ruby code
- it is implicitly used for method invocations without an explicit receiver and for instance variable access
Did I miss anything?
Kind regards
robert
···
On 06.06.2007 03:24, Daniel Waite wrote:
What I got most from it was its *incredibly thorough* explanation of the concept of 'self' in Ruby. Moments after finishing the chapter on self I ran to _why's creature code and, line by line, explained exactly what it was doing. I was so proud of myself.
Hi --
What I got most from it was its *incredibly thorough* explanation of the concept of 'self' in Ruby. Moments after finishing the chapter on self I ran to _why's creature code and, line by line, explained exactly what it was doing. I was so proud of myself.
You make it sound as if there was something complex about "self". Makes me wonder whether I am missing something about "self". As far as I can see "self" is an ordinary variable with these additional properties:
- it is automatically set to the current receiver and it cannot be altered by Ruby code
- it is implicitly used for method invocations without an explicit receiver and for instance variable access
Did I miss anything?
Only the fact that in practice, grasping self is a stumbling-block for
a lot of people. In addition to just getting the concept of a
"default object", which is not always easy, there's the question of
where and when self changes, which can be confusing because it
sometimes overlaps with local scope but not always.
So I wanted to explain (and document and demonstrate) both self and
scope pretty thoroughly. Almost anything in the language can probably
be reduced to a couple of defining phrases, but just saying (for
example) that a class method is a singleton method of a class object
doesn't actually make everyone understand or feel confident about
applying the concepts involved. People really do learn in different
ways
David
···
On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Robert Klemme wrote:
On 06.06.2007 03:24, Daniel Waite wrote:
--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black\)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf\)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)
Seconded. I'd recommend Ruby for Rails even if you aren't necessarily
doing Rails. It's the best intro to ruby the language I've ever read.
···
On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 11:18:45AM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Emilio Tagua wrote:
>On 6/5/07, finetan@hotmail.com <finetan@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Hi all
>>
>>Anyone of you have read the book, David Black's book _Ruby for Rails?
>>
>>I 'd like to know what you think about the book from a professional
>>perspective.
>>
>>Your insight some might find it useful.
>>
>
>I think it's a great book, i would highly recommend it *after* reading
>and understanding "Agile Development with Ruby on Rails".
>
>It gives you an idea of what Rails does at the Ruby level. I wouldn't
>recommend it as first book as i said before, maybe as a third
>("Agile..." and a good Ruby book first). It has some great practices
>and you will be a better Ruby programmer while doing apps in RoR.
>
>Cheers
>
>
Well ... I think you *can* learn both Ruby and Rails from _Ruby for
Rails_. Now "Agile" and "Pickaxe" are more or less mandatory as
*referenced* once you're developing Ruby or Rails code for a living. But
if you know nothing about either, I'd recommend starting with _Ruby for
Rails_.
And David's description of the singleton class is another terrific feature of the book.
James Edward Gray II
···
On Jun 6, 2007, at 5:57 AM, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
Almost anything in the language can probably
be reduced to a couple of defining phrases, but just saying (for
example) that a class method is a singleton method of a class object
doesn't actually make everyone understand or feel confident about
applying the concepts involved.
Hi --
What I got most from it was its *incredibly thorough* explanation of the concept of 'self' in Ruby. Moments after finishing the chapter on self I ran to _why's creature code and, line by line, explained exactly what it was doing. I was so proud of myself.
You make it sound as if there was something complex about "self". Makes me wonder whether I am missing something about "self". As far as I can see "self" is an ordinary variable with these additional properties:
- it is automatically set to the current receiver and it cannot be altered by Ruby code
- it is implicitly used for method invocations without an explicit receiver and for instance variable access
Did I miss anything?
Only the fact that in practice, grasping self is a stumbling-block for
a lot of people. In addition to just getting the concept of a
"default object", which is not always easy, there's the question of
where and when self changes, which can be confusing because it
sometimes overlaps with local scope but not always.
This reminds me of the headaches I had when confronted with OOP the first time. That's quite a few years ago now and OOP has become my second nature (or so) - that's probably the reason why I did not find anything strange about "self". But true, for somebody relatively new to OOP this might be considerably harder. I had forgotten that. But it's good to be reminded of this once in a while.
So I wanted to explain (and document and demonstrate) both self and
scope pretty thoroughly. Almost anything in the language can probably
be reduced to a couple of defining phrases, but just saying (for
example) that a class method is a singleton method of a class object
doesn't actually make everyone understand or feel confident about
applying the concepts involved. People really do learn in different
ways
Sure. I didn't want to question the explanation (haven't even read the book as I am not doing any Rails), I was just curious whether I missed something. Thank you for your explanation!
Kind regards
robert
···
On 06.06.2007 12:57, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Robert Klemme wrote:
On 06.06.2007 03:24, Daniel Waite wrote:
+1
I'd really like to see David to rework it into a Ruby-based
introductory programming text.
-r
···
At 1:34 AM +0900 6/7/07, Logan Capaldo wrote:
Seconded. I'd recommend Ruby for Rails even if you aren't
necessarily doing Rails. It's the best intro to ruby the
language I've ever read.
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume rdm@cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841
Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development
I'd like to see that too, well unless I beat him to writing one <G>
Actually I like Ruby For Rails, but I'm afraid to say that it's gotten
pretty far behind the current state of Rails.
···
On 6/6/07, Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote:
At 1:34 AM +0900 6/7/07, Logan Capaldo wrote:
> Seconded. I'd recommend Ruby for Rails even if you aren't
> necessarily doing Rails. It's the best intro to ruby the
> language I've ever read.+1
I'd really like to see David to rework it into a Ruby-based
introductory programming text.
--
Rick DeNatale
My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
I am now convinced. I am putting this on my to read list after I read
the Agile book (I have it and not the other and cannot order books
right now...)
···
On 6/6/07, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
On Jun 6, 2007, at 5:57 AM, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> Almost anything in the language can probably
> be reduced to a couple of defining phrases, but just saying (for
> example) that a class method is a singleton method of a class object
> doesn't actually make everyone understand or feel confident about
> applying the concepts involved.And David's description of the singleton class is another terrific
feature of the book.James Edward Gray II
--
-fREW
It all really depends on what you want to learn. But I'd say that you really should be comfortable with Ruby before doing too much with Rails. Rails makes a lot more sense if you've really delved into Ruby first.
The Pickaxe is a vital Reference book. buy it, keep it handy.
Agile... is also a vital Reference book and tutorial, if you intend to do Rails, you need to have it.
Ruby for Rails fills in a lot of blanks, and yes, the discussions in it about self and several other topics are some of the best and most often referred to. You'll be glad you bought it. You could jump straight into Ruby and Rails with only this book, but you should always build a small library for any language and/or framework, because one book will answer what another book will not.
If you really need to learn beginning Ruby, go for the book Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional.
It won't really get you to Professional, but it will get you to where you have at least a basic understanding of a broad number of topics touched by Ruby.
Also consider the Oreilly books, Ruby Cookbook, and Rails Cookbook.
The Ruby Cookbook unfortuanately doesn't address some of the useful topics in other language cookbooks (like the PHP book).
Luckily all but maybe 1 of the Ruby books out there are very very good programming books.
The problem you may eventually encounter is situations where Rails (or Camping even) are overkill for a web site, and all you need is simpler stuff. Also, if you are planning to use Ruby technologies for web sites, investigate hosting services very carefully. Ruby isn't as widely or well supported by hosting providers as is PHP. What's more, Rails, like some Python frameworks, is best hosted by companies that specialize in these kinds of web apps. These kinds of web apps are best served by having slice hosting or VPS (virtual private server) hosting. Not the usual shared hosting. Of course, if you can afford dedicated hosting, that works too.
···
On Jun 6, 2007, at 12:37 PM, fREW wrote:
On 6/6/07, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
On Jun 6, 2007, at 5:57 AM, dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> Almost anything in the language can probably
> be reduced to a couple of defining phrases, but just saying (for
> example) that a class method is a singleton method of a class object
> doesn't actually make everyone understand or feel confident about
> applying the concepts involved.And David's description of the singleton class is another terrific
feature of the book.James Edward Gray II
I am now convinced. I am putting this on my to read list after I read
the Agile book (I have it and not the other and cannot order books
right now...)--
-fREW