Downloadable version of "Programming Ruby"?

Hello,

I was wondering where I could find a downloadable version of the book
"Programming Ruby." The links to the downloadable versions at the page
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/downloads/book.html seem to
be broken. Is this due to some accident, or have the links been broken
intentionally, perhaps to encourage people to buy the book (which is
completely understandable, as it’s obvious that a lot of work went into
creating it.) Any information on this matter would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Vikram Ravindran

ravindr@ecf.toronto.edu (Ravindran Vikram) writes:

I was wondering where I could find a downloadable version of the book
“Programming Ruby.” The links to the downloadable versions at the page
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/downloads/book.html seem to
be broken. Is this due to some accident, or have the links been broken
intentionally, perhaps to encourage people to buy the book (which is
completely understandable, as it’s obvious that a lot of work went into
creating it.) Any information on this matter would be appreciated.

No, it’s not to convince folks to buy the book (after all, we chose to
release the content under an open license in the first place
;). Someone recently broke the license on a downloaded copy, so I
removed the download while I thought about the situation.

I’ve added the link back now. The language reference chapter is
currently truncated, as the way Ruby handles class variables has
changed since 1.6.1, and that means that one of the code examples now
fails. I’ll look at this when I get a chance.

Dave

Just a thought: I guess it needs a fair, ongoing amount of work to
keep Programming Ruby up-to-date with new ruby versions. Is it
possible to somehow organize a wiki or open source like
community project to continuously update Programming Ruby?

Maybe some people on this list have some time and are willing to
give you something back. I don’t have much free time, but I’d surely
volunteer for small tasks.

Regards,
Pit

···

On 17 Jul 2002, at 22:37, Dave Thomas wrote:

(…) The language reference chapter is
currently truncated, as the way Ruby handles class variables has
changed since 1.6.1, and that means that one of the code examples now
fails. I’ll look at this when I get a chance.

“Pit Capitain” pit@capitain.de writes:

(…) The language reference chapter is
currently truncated, as the way Ruby handles class variables has
changed since 1.6.1, and that means that one of the code examples now
fails. I’ll look at this when I get a chance.

Just a thought: I guess it needs a fair, ongoing amount of work to
keep Programming Ruby up-to-date with new ruby versions. Is it
possible to somehow organize a wiki or open source like
community project to continuously update Programming Ruby?

I’d love to do that. The problem I have is that I also have to keep
the print version up-to-date. Every now and then AWL say “there’s a
reprint happening, do you have any corrections?”. But… I can’t
change the pagination: because of the way books are printed it costs a
lot to remake all the plates (or whatever they’re called nowadays), so
I have to send them individual pages with changes. And that’s a hard
thing to do.

However, the problem is getting fairly severe, so perhaps it’s time to
go back to my editor and see what we can do.

Maybe some people on this list have some time and are willing to
give you something back. I don’t have much free time, but I’d surely
volunteer for small tasks.

Thank you for that.

Dave

···

On 17 Jul 2002, at 22:37, Dave Thomas wrote:

Well, there’s the two errata pages:

http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/errata/errata.html
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/errata/errata1.html

There IS the up-and-coming RubyDoc project:

http://www.rubydoc.org/book/

And the wiki … where I think this page might be appropriate:

http://www.rubygarden.com/ruby?ProgrammingRubyErrata

Every so often, stuff from here can get moved to the pragprog
errata pages area (when the changes are sent off to AW for
a reprint) … but at least this way people can track changes
before they make it to the print version and contribute in
some way other than emailing poor Dave directly.

Dave (and Andy), thanks for such a great book and all the hard
work that went into it. Of course, many thanks go to Matz for
creating the language itself … :wink:

– Dossy

···

On 2002.07.18, Dave Thomas Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com wrote:

However, the problem is getting fairly severe, so perhaps it’s time to
go back to my editor and see what we can do.


Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com
Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/
“He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly – then you can let go and quickly move on.” (p. 70)