The Ruby Way

ruby-talk
1

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assisant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

2

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assisant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

It’s a great book. Check it on Amazon for reviews and extracts.

Gavin

···

From: “Daniel Carrera” dcarrera@math.umd.edu

3

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

I think it’s a great book!

I believe the pickaxe book is the best place to start, but once you’ve been
writing Ruby code for a while, TRW is the next book that’s really worth
grabbing (Matz’s book is also helpful, as a good desk reference).

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

There is, but I can’t remember where it lives.

H.

···

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 14:39, Daniel Carrera wrote:

4

Hi –

···

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

http://hypermetrics.com/rubyhacker/coralbook

David

–
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav

5

Daniel Carrera dcarrera@math.umd.edu writes:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

When I was learning C, I read K&R because it’s the definitive book on C.
When I had finished reading it, I knew what C looked like, I knew its
syntax and operators and function. But I still couldn’t sit down and write
a C program.

The Ruby Way was the first Ruby book I read, and I think it’s main
advantage is that it doesn’t just tell you how to program in Ruby; it
tells you how to think in Ruby.

···

–
Dames lie about anything - just for practice. -Raymond Chandler

6

Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?

It greeat! Don’t have nothin’ more to say.

Would that be a good book to buy?

Very short and in my opinion: Yes

7

I bought it a couple of days ago. I’ve been working my way through it
and like it very much. I started with the pickaxe book and really
liked that (I still use it on a daily basis). Then I bought Teach
Yourself Ruby in 21 Days, which is also a very good book. The Ruby Way
is more advanced than Teach Yourself Ruby and very different from the
pickaxe book (you can learn from both). Unfortunately, I was
disappointed with the book Making Use of Ruby, which I cannot recommend.

···

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 10:48 PM, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 14:39, Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

I think it’s a great book!

I believe the pickaxe book is the best place to start, but once you’ve
been
writing Ruby code for a while, TRW is the next book that’s really worth
grabbing (Matz’s book is also helpful, as a good desk reference).

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

There is, but I can’t remember where it lives.

H.

8

Thanks for answering that one… these questions
always arise when I am away from the computer.

HF

···

----- Original Message -----
From: dblack@candle.superlink.net
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 12:27 AM
Subject: Re: The Ruby Way

Hi –

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

http://hypermetrics.com/rubyhacker/coralbook

9

When I was learning C, I read K&R because it’s the definitive book on C.
When I had finished reading it, I knew what C looked like, I knew its
syntax and operators and function. But I still couldn’t sit down and write
a C program.

Wow, I can’t hardly believe that. Did you do any of the exercises (…which
were, for the most part, complete C programs, albeit small)? I still use that
book as the standard by which others are judged.

10

I’m just getting started on Ruby. Would you recommend I wait a while
before reading “The Ruby Way”?

I don’t like buying “newbie books” even when I’m a newbie. I find that I
exhaust those books very quickly. Where as with an expert book, even if I
read everything, I can keep comming back to it later on.

Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days sounds like a “newbie book”. Would you
agree with that?

Thanks for the help.

Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assisant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

···

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Mark Wilson wrote:

I bought it a couple of days ago. I’ve been working my way through it
and like it very much. I started with the pickaxe book and really
liked that (I still use it on a daily basis). Then I bought Teach
Yourself Ruby in 21 Days, which is also a very good book. The Ruby Way
is more advanced than Teach Yourself Ruby and very different from the
pickaxe book (you can learn from both). Unfortunately, I was
disappointed with the book Making Use of Ruby, which I cannot recommend.

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 10:48 PM, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 14:39, Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

I think it’s a great book!

I believe the pickaxe book is the best place to start, but once you’ve
been
writing Ruby code for a while, TRW is the next book that’s really worth
grabbing (Matz’s book is also helpful, as a good desk reference).

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

There is, but I can’t remember where it lives.

H.

11

I’m also a newbie and generally agree that many newbie books start and
end at too simplistic a level. I did, however, get a lot out of Teach
Yourself Ruby (the rest of the title is unfortunate). However, I
didn’t buy the book until after I read a sample chapter on line and the
table of contents. You can see if this book suits your needs here (not
an affiliate link):

http://www.sams.com/catalog/article.asp?product_id={226452E6-35A8-4079-
81FF-444D4EBB24A1}&session_id={E3B633ED-A328-4BCB-8DC9-3FE0F95B5326}

Or on Amazon at (not an affiliate link):

sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-5951057-4813709#product-details

Mark Slagell also took a translation of the Ruby User’s Guide from
Japanese and, with further translation help and some rewriting, put
together the guide found here:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/~slagell/ruby/index.html

···

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 11:15 PM, Daniel Carrera wrote:

I’m just getting started on Ruby. Would you recommend I wait a while
before reading “The Ruby Way”?

I don’t like buying “newbie books” even when I’m a newbie. I find
that I
exhaust those books very quickly. Where as with an expert book, even
if I
read everything, I can keep comming back to it later on.

Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days sounds like a “newbie book”. Would you
agree with that?

Thanks for the help.

Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assisant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Mark Wilson wrote:

I bought it a couple of days ago. I’ve been working my way through it
and like it very much. I started with the pickaxe book and really
liked that (I still use it on a daily basis). Then I bought Teach
Yourself Ruby in 21 Days, which is also a very good book. The Ruby
Way
is more advanced than Teach Yourself Ruby and very different from the
pickaxe book (you can learn from both). Unfortunately, I was
disappointed with the book Making Use of Ruby, which I cannot
recommend.

On Saturday, December 7, 2002, at 10:48 PM, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 14:39, Daniel Carrera wrote:

What do people think of “The Ruby Way”?
Would that be a good book to buy?

I think it’s a great book!

I believe the pickaxe book is the best place to start, but once
you’ve
been
writing Ruby code for a while, TRW is the next book that’s really
worth
grabbing (Matz’s book is also helpful, as a good desk reference).

Is there a book homepage? I can’t find it in Google.

There is, but I can’t remember where it lives.

H.

12

“Daniel Carrera” dcarrera@math.umd.edu

Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days sounds like a “newbie book”. Would you
agree with that?

Disagree … don’t get put off by the “21 Days” title. It is a very good
book !
My favourites: Pickaxe, TRW, and TYR 21 D

13

[Daniel Carrera:]
I’m just getting started on Ruby. Would you recommend I wait a while
before reading “The Ruby Way”?

No. Get it now. The amount you’ve posted to the list, and the work you’re
doing on a tutorial, suggests you’ll be doing Ruby for some time. Therefore,
get TRW and start learning straight away.

Gavin

14

I’m just getting started on Ruby. Would you recommend I wait a while
before reading “The Ruby Way”?

I wouldn’t. It is “advanced” in that it covers some more advanced stuff, but it
has enough pre-cursor stuff in there too to lead you too it. It’s only fault
(IMO) is that it is a bit broad; it’s not really for neophyte programmers, but
nor seasoned ones either (I mean, do we really need a paragraph on
String#reverse?).

15

I’m just getting started on Ruby. Would you recommend I wait a while
before reading “The Ruby Way”?

I wouldn’t. It is “advanced” in that it covers some more advanced stuff,
but it
has enough pre-cursor stuff in there too to lead you too it. It’s only
fault
(IMO) is that it is a bit broad; it’s not really for neophyte programmers,
but
nor seasoned ones either (I mean, do we really need a paragraph on
String#reverse?).

I’ll address that since you brought it up.

The book certainly has its share of design flaws and
outright errors (which are my responsibility and not
any collaborators’).

Your rhetorical question about #reverse is a point
well taken, and one to which I gave many hours of
thought.

What I decided was:

  1. Everything is obvious to somebody.
  2. Nothing is obvious to everybody.
  3. I’m an increasingly poor judge about how the
    Ruby neophyte thinks anyway.
  4. Therefore, I’ll err on the side of completeness.

I.e., better too much information than not enough.

There is an infinity of things you won’t find in
this book; and many of them cause people to say,
“Why wasn’t THIS included?” But while I couldn’t
cover all of the intermediate or advanced
programming problems in the universe, I felt I
could cover all the trivial ones. And so I did.

Just a little justification after the fact. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Hal

···

----- Original Message -----
From: “Mike Campbell” michael_s_campbell@yahoo.com
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 7:47 AM
Subject: Re: The Ruby Way

16

[ snip ]

What I decided was:

  1. Everything is obvious to somebody.
  2. Nothing is obvious to everybody.
  3. I’m an increasingly poor judge about how the
    Ruby neophyte thinks anyway.
  4. Therefore, I’ll err on the side of completeness.

I.e., better too much information than not enough.

There is an infinity of things you won’t find in
this book; and many of them cause people to say,
“Why wasn’t THIS included?” But while I couldn’t
cover all of the intermediate or advanced
programming problems in the universe, I felt I
could cover all the trivial ones. And so I did.

Just a little justification after the fact. :slight_smile:

No need to worry. Ruby Way is generally the book I pick up when I’m
looking for cookbook-style solutions. I found it suitably organized for
that purpose. Haven’t regretted purchasing it yet :slight_smile:

-Brian W

Brian Wisti
brian@coolnamehere.com
http://coolnamehere.com/

···

At 07:54 AM 12/9/2002 +0900, you wrote:

17

Just a little justification after the fact. :slight_smile:

Thanks Hal. FWIW, I do like the book and consider it money well spent. I
wanted to give what I would consider an objective opinion to the OP though and
not let any zealotry through. =)

18

Just a little justification after the fact. :slight_smile:

Thanks Hal. FWIW, I do like the book and consider it money well spent. I
wanted to give what I would consider an objective opinion to the OP though
and
not let any zealotry through. =)

Absolutely.

No one should hesitate to give negative feedback
about the book… as long as it’s polite. :slight_smile:

Hal

···

----- Original Message -----
From: “Mike Campbell” michael_s_campbell@yahoo.com
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: The Ruby Way