Christopher J. Meisenzahl CPS, CSTE
Senior Software Testing Consultant
Spherion
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com
I really like the pickaxe book by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
and very, very good is also “The Ruby Way” by Hal Fulton.
markus
···
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com wrote:
Christopher J. Meisenzahl CPS, CSTE
Senior Software Testing Consultant
Spherion
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com
Alas, there aren’t so many that you can be choosy. On the bright side,
for not much money you can get a copy of all the good Ruby books. You
can’t get by without Programming Ruby
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201710897/thepragmaticprog/104-2010396-2737500).
If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672320835/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/104-2010396-2737500)
I’m not pushing Amazon here, btw. Buy the books anywhere you want.
I really like the pickaxe book by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
and very, very good is also “The Ruby Way” by Hal Fulton.
I have to second this. These two books are a great way to learn Ruby and
its idiom. I’m truly jealous of the plethora of Japanese books about Ruby
though … I hope that we can build just as large a collection.
-pate
···
On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Markus Jais wrote:
markus
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com wrote:
Christopher J. Meisenzahl CPS, CSTE
Senior Software Testing Consultant
Spherion
christopher.j.meisenzahl@citicorp.com
Can you explain this further? Maybe I’m not serious enough about Ruby
development, but I’ve taken several ganders at “The Ruby Way” and didn’t
feel compelled to buy it because it lacked depth in many of the areas
where I’d have wanted it the most (the GUI toolkits sections are
particularly light, imho).
My favorite Ruby book is the Pickaxe, especially since it’s licensed under
the OPL… even better that Dave and Andy made it available as HTML.
Having that as a resource during my first week of Ruby programming
(without having to buy it) was invaluable-- without it I wonder if I would
have ever felt compelled to use Ruby when I was already quite happy with
Perl… this also led me to buy the book fairly quickly thereafter.
In fact, if other English-language Ruby books were licensed OPL and
available on the net, I would buy hardcopy just to show my support-- even
if they weren’t as useful to me as the Pickaxe.
-michael
···
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:57, Tim Hunter wrote:
If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
Michael C. Libby wrote:
If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
Can you explain this further? Maybe I’m not serious enough about Ruby
development, but I’ve taken several ganders at “The Ruby Way” and didn’t
feel compelled to buy it because it lacked depth in many of the areas
where I’d have wanted it the most (the GUI toolkits sections are
particularly light, imho).
None of the Ruby books (including the Ruby Developer’s Guide) have
particularly “deep” sections on GUI development, because there’s just
not enough space. One could easily devote an entire book to a particular
GUI toolkit, and the same is probably true for several other topics
(e.g. database and web development with Ruby).
My favorite Ruby book is the Pickaxe, especially since it’s licensed under
the OPL… even better that Dave and Andy made it available as HTML.
Having that as a resource during my first week of Ruby programming
(without having to buy it) was invaluable-- without it I wonder if I would
have ever felt compelled to use Ruby when I was already quite happy with
Perl… this also led me to buy the book fairly quickly thereafter.
My two favorite books (let’s call it a tie) are “Programming Ruby” and
“The Ruby Way”, and I think they complement each other. You are
absolutely correct that anyone new to Ruby should read “Programming
Ruby” first; I think the first half of the book does an excellent job of
introducing you to the language, and the second half has some nice
hard-core stuff for later. In contrast, TRW is not meant for beginning
Ruby programmers, nor is it a hard-core reference guide. TRW takes more
of a cookbook-style approach and shows you various Ruby idioms and ways
of doing things. I’ve learned a lot about Ruby programming by studying
the little examples in TRW, even when the examples themselves weren’t
especially useful to me. The deceptively-titled “Simple Data Tasks”
chapter is an especially good source for these.
In fact, if other English-language Ruby books were licensed OPL and
available on the net, I would buy hardcopy just to show my support-- even
if they weren’t as useful to me as the Pickaxe.
Why don’t you go ahead and buy a hard (paperback) copy of “The Ruby Way”
now? Then, if it’s OPL’d later you can tell your friends how
forward-thinking you were 
···
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:57, Tim Hunter wrote:
It was meant to be broad rather than deep. That’s
just a design decision that you may not agree
with.
You might try The Ruby Developer’s Guide as an
alternative, but I don’t think any books out there
go very deeply into GUI issues.
Hal Fulton
···
----- Original Message -----
From: “Michael C. Libby” m_libby@andsoforth.com
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: What’s your favorite Ruby book?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:57, Tim Hunter wrote:
If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
Can you explain this further? Maybe I’m not serious enough about Ruby
development, but I’ve taken several ganders at “The Ruby Way” and didn’t
feel compelled to buy it because it lacked depth in many of the areas
where I’d have wanted it the most (the GUI toolkits sections are
particularly light, imho).
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
Can you explain this further? Maybe I’m not serious enough about Ruby
development, but I’ve taken several ganders at “The Ruby Way” and didn’t
feel compelled to buy it because it lacked depth in many of the areas
where I’d have wanted it the most (the GUI toolkits sections are
particularly light, imho).
Depending on what you already know, of course, you’ll learn a lot about Ruby
from TRW. Apart from the cookbook-style element (the obvious benefit of the
book), you learn a lot about the language as a whole, and about advanced OOP
and dynamic concepts (a headspin). It’s one of the best books on my shelf.
Gavin
···
From: “Michael C. Libby” m_libby@andsoforth.com
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:57, Tim Hunter wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1If you’re a serious Ruby developer, you’ll need The Ruby Way
Can you explain this further? Maybe I’m not serious enough about Ruby
development, but I’ve taken several ganders at “The Ruby Way” and didn’t
feel compelled to buy it because it lacked depth in many of the areas
where I’d have wanted it the most (the GUI toolkits sections are
particularly light, imho).
Well, I’m not interested in the GUI toolkits so those pages remain unread.
For me, Chapters 1 thru 5 were worth the price of the book.
My favorite Ruby book is the Pickaxe, especially since it’s licensed under
the OPL… even better that Dave and Andy made it available as HTML.
Having that as a resource during my first week of Ruby programming
(without having to buy it) was invaluable-- without it I wonder if I would
have ever felt compelled to use Ruby when I was already quite happy with
Perl… this also led me to buy the book fairly quickly thereafter.In fact, if other English-language Ruby books were licensed OPL and
available on the net, I would buy hardcopy just to show my support-- even
if they weren’t as useful to me as the Pickaxe.
Good man! I think it’s important to keep in mind that if we want publishers to
publish books about Ruby then we need to be buying books about Ruby. I
think in general the folks at SAMS and Addison Wesley don’t care about the
OPL as much as they care about the BUX. I want to encourage
Dave/Andy/Hal/Matz/Lyle, et. al. to keep on thinking about Ruby, write
down what they think, and then tell me what they figured out in a book
that I can keep next to my keyboard.
···
On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 22:25:20 +0900, Michael C. Libby wrote:
On Wednesday 13 November 2002 09:57, Tim Hunter wrote:
-michael
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In fact, if other English-language Ruby books were licensed OPL and
available on the net, I would buy hardcopy just to show my support-- even
if they weren’t as useful to me as the Pickaxe.Good man! I think it’s important to keep in mind that if we want publishers to
publish books about Ruby then we need to be buying books about Ruby. I
think in general the folks at SAMS and Addison Wesley don’t care about the
OPL as much as they care about the BUX.
Some authors, and some publishers (though not always together), believe that
presenting a book, online, for free, helps sales. Bruce Eckel seems convinced.
http://www.mindview.net/Etc/Discussions/FAQ.html#BooksOnWeb
Others have varying opinions
http://www.studiob.com/mailinglist.asp?ID=47088
http://www.studiob.com/mailinglist.asp?ID=63009
http://www.studiob.com/mailinglist.asp?ID=70231
The choice of license seems to be an issue, as well as whether the entire book
is available, whether the free version remains available after print
publication, and just how user-friendly is the online version (e.g., can you
search it? Print it?).
James
" JamesBritt" james@jamesbritt.com wrote in message
news:CIELJOOMCFBDNHLICOEFKENPCOAA.james@jamesbritt.com…
Some authors, and some publishers (though not always together), believe
that
presenting a book, online, for free, helps sales. Bruce Eckel seems
convinced.
I tend to look at as much free as I can…if I like the style…I buy the
book. It is much easier to read a manual than something online.