What books to buy?

ruby-talk
1

Hey all!

         I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But what books should I buy?

         01 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
         02 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
         03 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
         04 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>Rails Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
         05 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>Ruby Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

         Is this a good mixture? For instance, with 02, do I really need 03? Or with 03, do I really need 02? Please give me your input guys. I don't have too much money to spend.

Thanks,
Kyrre

2

Kyrre Nygård wrote:

        Hey all!

        I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But what books should I buy?

Start with David Black's _Ruby for Rails_.

3

Kyrre Nygård wrote:

        Hey all!

        I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But
what books should I buy?

        01
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Programming
Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
        02
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Agile
Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
        03
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Ruby
on Rails: Up and Running
        04
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Rails
Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
        05
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Ruby
Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

        Is this a good mixture? For instance, with 02, do I really need
03? Or with 03, do I really need 02? Please give me your input guys. I
don't have too much money to spend.

Thanks,
Kyrre

I would buy the Second Edition of Agile Web Development With Rails
directly from Pragmatic (in beta), and download the required "Edge
Rails". For background, I would buy Programming Ruby in PDF from
Pragmatic, since the paper versions aren't updated as frequently. And I
would buy David Black's "Ruby for Rails" from Manning, which isn't
listed in your selections. I believe it's available in both PDF and paper.

Well ... you said you aspire to becoming a *great* Ruby/Rails developer.
:slight_smile: If that's too much for you, just get David Black's book and play
around with the tutorials.

4

Kyrre Nygård wrote:

        Hey all!

        I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But what books should I buy?

Go get David Black's book, Ruby for Rails, and then use Google for free Ruby tutorials and guides and API docs. And ask a lot of questions here.

Spend your remaining money on books about software development and software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.

···

--
James Britt

"A principle or axiom is of no value without the rules for applying it."
   - Len Bullard

5

I would go in for David Black's book, Ruby for Rails first.

···

On 10/15/06, Kyrre Nygård <kyrreny@broadpark.no> wrote:

         Hey all!

         I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
But what books should I buy?
Thanks,
Kyrre

--
Satish Talim
Learning Ruby - - Log In

6

Thank you all for such wonderful advice!

My background is basically just simple shell scripting.

I wish to avoid PDF because I don't want to hurt my eyes too much.

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

All the best,
Kyrre

···

At 21:30 14.10.2006, Kyrre Nygård wrote:

        Hey all!

        I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But what books should I buy?

        01 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
        02 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
        03 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
        04 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Rails Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
        05 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance&gt;Ruby Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

        Is this a good mixture? For instance, with 02, do I really need 03? Or with 03, do I really need 02? Please give me your input guys. I don't have too much money to spend.

Thanks,
Kyrre

7

James Britt wrote:

Kyrre Nygård wrote:

        Hey all!

        I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
But what books should I buy?

Go get David Black's book, Ruby for Rails, and then use Google for free
Ruby tutorials and guides and API docs. And ask a lot of questions here.

Spend your remaining money on books about software development and
software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.

You mean there aren't any Ruby-specific software engineering books? :slight_smile:

But seriously, for someone on a low budget, start with David Black's
book, then start accumulating PDFs from Pragmatic on an "as-needed"
basis. All the good software engineering/agile practices are
well-represented in the Pragmatic bookshelf.

By the way, I never did see any info on the original poster's experience
level or background. I assumed from the post that he was an experienced
programmer who wanted to branch into Ruby and Rails, given his initial
selection.

8

Definitely Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas

Dave

···

On 10/14/06, Satish Talim <satish.talim@gmail.com> wrote:

On 10/15/06, Kyrre Nygård <kyrreny@broadpark.no> wrote:
>
> Hey all!
>
> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
> But what books should I buy?
> Thanks,
> Kyrre
>
I would go in for David Black's book, Ruby for Rails first.

--
Satish Talim
Learning Ruby - - Log In

9

Hello James!

Yes I would be really interested in that.
Any suggestions?

I see one here that looks good:

Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects

How about that?

Thanks,
Kyrre

···

At 23:09 14.10.2006, James Britt wrote:

Spend your remaining money on books about software development and software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.

--
James Britt

"A principle or axiom is of no value without the rules for applying it."
  - Len Bullard

10

Thank you all for such wonderful advice!

My background is basically just simple shell scripting.

I wish to avoid PDF because I don't want to hurt my eyes too much.

I have that problem too.

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

Well the Ruby Cookbook is a great book for when you just need to get stuff done,
but the nature of book writing for Ruby is that there are a couple of
great texts
like the Pickaxe, Ruby for Rails etc. and they have run away with the mindshare.

···

On 10/15/06, Kyrre Nygård <kyrreny@broadpark.no> wrote:

11

Get Agile Web Development by Dave Thomas & Ruby for Rails by David
Black. I would also get the pdf of Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas as
it is a great reference.

Take the time to get out of rails and do some straight ruby coding.

12

Kyrre Nygård wrote:

I see one here that looks good:

Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects

I've looked at that, it seemed fairly good to me.

I also recommend _Refactoring_ and _Design Patterns_ and
_The Pragmatic Programmer_.

And if you want to look "under the hood" at all, you should
read _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_.

There's also a second edition of _The Ruby Way_ coming out
in a week or two. Some people like it.

Hal

13

Hal Fulton wrote:

I also recommend _Refactoring_ and _Design Patterns_ and
_The Pragmatic Programmer_.

Along those lines, avoid "Head First", a little too detractingly silly
for me. And "Code Complete" could be a possible alternative / complement
to The Pragmatic Programmer. (Warning, C++ and its -isms inside. Very
down-to-earth and universally applicable book otherwise, especially for
making "real-world" software.)

For learning Ruby itself, I went fine with the free online Pickaxe and
then reading the 1.8 release changelog - more than enough if you've
learned enough programming languages already to know they're all the
same at a level anyway :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

However, I'd get Pickaxe 2nd ed for the cleaned-up printable standard
lib reference.

David Vallner

14

Although I'm sure that O'Reilly has some books in the works,
their only Ruby/Rails book (that I know of) is

  Ruby in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
  Yukihiro Matsumoto, 2002

Although it is certainly authoritative (:-), it is not really
appropriate as an introductory text.

Here are some books I'd like to see:

  Algorithms in Ruby
  Robert Sedgewick, ???

    This would show how to implement assorted algorithms,
    using Ruby's peculiar control structures, etc.

  Higher Order Ruby
  Mark-Jason Dominus, ???

    This would take MJD's notions from Perl, where they
    are hard to implement, to Ruby, where they aren't.

  Programming in Ruby
  David Black

    This would be an "expanded subset" of "Ruby on Rails".
    It would teach programming, using Ruby as the language.

-r

···

At 7:18 PM +0900 10/15/06, Kyrre Nygård wrote:

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

--
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

15

Hal Fulton wrote:

And if you want to look "under the hood" at all, you should
read _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_.

Ah, now *there's* a challenge for the authors amongst us -- translate
this book from Scheme to Ruby!! Any takers??

16

I'll +1 on the suggestions to go for Ruby for Rails, Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Ed, and Programming Ruby 2nd Ed. They all fill different niches, and I'm a book person.

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

The Pragmatic books have some sort of link in with O'Reilly, so O'Reilly get credit by default. Having said that, O'Reilly have slid down a long way from the near perfection of their early books, pre-perfect binding. Now they're just good, but publish the odd lemon.

There's also a second edition of _The Ruby Way_ coming out
in a week or two. Some people like it.

It's on my wish list, Hal.

Hal Fulton wrote:

I also recommend _Refactoring_ and _Design Patterns_ and
_The Pragmatic Programmer_.

Along those lines, avoid "Head First", a little too detractingly silly
for me. And "Code Complete" could be a possible alternative / complement
to The Pragmatic Programmer. (Warning, C++ and its -isms inside. Very
down-to-earth and universally applicable book otherwise, especially for
making "real-world" software.)

I feel just as uncomfortable with the Head First books - although some people seem to find them useful, and I always recommend students to review them. Too much ADD teen talk for me.

Refactoring is important to read and understand. 'Design Patterns', however, have always felt to me like restating the obvious, and far too tied in to C++ to be of much use outside; there is a feeling that, in an ideal language, every case in Design Patterns would be a trivial part of the language. Ruby makes a good example for that argument.

I am also uncomfortable with Code Complete, although I find it hard to express why - and it could just be the Microsoft association. I view The Pragmatic Programmer as the junior introduction to The Practice of Programming; pick one or both, according to your level.

Sticking with software engineering, you need some background on version control (Subversion), possibly the Pragmatic book, and read up on Test Driven Development; possibly the Pragmatic book as well, although they don't do one specific to Ruby.

Paul

···

On 15 Oct 2006, at 11:18, Kyrre Nygård wrote:
On 15 Oct 2006, at 15:26, Hal Fulton wrote:
On 15 Oct 2006, at 17:03, David Vallner wrote:

17

I like those.

Further to which, I'd really like to see a rewrite of Chris Pine's book. I didn't feel that it did a good enough job of introducing new programmers; although there was obviously a lot of thought put into the ordering of concepts, some aspects could have been improved. In particular, I left that it needed a lot more exercises and solutions for the student to follow.

Paul

···

On 15 Oct 2006, at 17:41, Rich Morin wrote:

Here are some books I'd like to see:

  Algorithms in Ruby
  Robert Sedgewick, ???

    This would show how to implement assorted algorithms,
    using Ruby's peculiar control structures, etc.

  Higher Order Ruby
  Mark-Jason Dominus, ???

    This would take MJD's notions from Perl, where they
    are hard to implement, to Ruby, where they aren't.

  Programming in Ruby
  David Black

    This would be an "expanded subset" of "Ruby on Rails".
    It would teach programming, using Ruby as the language.

18

Not a book and I'm not finished with it yet, but:

James Edward Gray II

···

On Oct 15, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Rich Morin wrote:

  Higher Order Ruby
  Mark-Jason Dominus, ???

    This would take MJD's notions from Perl, where they
    are hard to implement, to Ruby, where they aren't.

19

<...>

Along those lines, avoid "Head First", a little too detractingly silly
for me.

<...>

That's true... if you want a reference book, or if you prefer boring,"serious"
and "professional" style (or if you are looking for some cure for insomnia).
On the other hand, if you are looking for a book which would help to learn and
remember: DO consider "Head First". These are written by people who know
great deal about how the brain works and teaching/learning.
Kathy Sierra's blog at http://headrush.typepad.com/ is worth reading too..

As for Ruby/RubyonRails, I'd say "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails"
and "Programming Ruby" both are 'must-have' and "Ruby for Rails" is very
welcome addition to these.

Regards,
Rimantas

···

--
http://rimantas.com/

20

and read up on Test
Driven Development; possibly the Pragmatic book as well, although they
don't do one specific to Ruby.

Unit testing isn't strictly equal to TDD, mind you. Former is a Good
Thing To Do more or less always (with no specific constraints on when to
write tests, and what to test how - the point is to get you a safety net
against stuff going up the proverbial creek), the latter an agile
development flavour, usual disclaimers about applicability apply. In the
land of TDD, fowlerettes lurk - watch out for the particularly deranged
ones. (Believing lessay mocking a RDBMS instead of using a testing
server is a good idea is a telltale sign of brain damage.)

David Vallner