Agile Web Development with Rails 1.1

Rails
41

The point of the ebook is get the developer into the Ruby on Rails
world.
At some point you are going to have to jump into the source and continue
to
learn how to use this wonderful framework. If you are looking for
someone
to show you step by step how to write your rails app then you are
looking
for a unicorn. However, if you are looking to get a good head start at
learning this framework, then buy the book! Catch up on the new
features at
the www.rubyonrails.com and this mailing list. I guess my points are 1.
The book gets you moving in a direction. 2. You will have to dig and
learn
things on your own to keep momentum going…

Thanks for the book Dave, you helped me to enjoy programming again.

–Ryan Ripley

----- Original Message -----
From: “Dave T.” [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Rails] Re: Re: Agile Web D. with Rails 1.1

42

On Mar 5, 2006, at 5:11 AM, Alain R. wrote:

You have to print (and bind?) your pdf yourself.

For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I’m surprised
to hear folks talking about doing that). It’s normally cheaper to buy
the bound book than buy a PDF and print it.

But, that raises an interesting question. Would folks be interested
in a more easily printed version of the PDF (no borders, black and
white, no hyperlinks, etc)?

With pdf, we gain a little (early access), but the seller gains a
lot (early sell, no printing, no shipping, no return).
It’s not win-win, it win-WINWINWIN.

I think you’re discounting the real cost of creating a book. But,
clearly, if you feel the PDFs don’t give you value, I’d recommend not
buying them.

Dave

43

Dave T. wrote:

On Mar 5, 2006, at 5:11 AM, Alain R. wrote:

You have to print (and bind?) your pdf yourself.

For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I’m surprised
to hear folks talking about doing that). It’s normally cheaper to buy
the bound book than buy a PDF and print it.

[BW] But if the printed version isn’t out yet…

[BW] This thread has gotten me wondering if it might not be worth
reconsidering the old notion of keeping documentation in 3-ring binders.
It
handled document updates pretty easily; “replace pages x-y with these.”
Also made it pretty easy, for anyone who was interested, to see exactly
what
was being changed. Just a thought.

Bill

44

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:52:27AM -0600, Dave T. wrote:
[…]

For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I’m surprised
to hear folks talking about doing that). It’s normally cheaper to buy
the bound book than buy a PDF and print it.

While I don’t often print the whole thing of the pdfs I buy, it is
very useful to print out specific reference pages, if I’m often going
back to a specific page, or want to mark something up with notes.

But, that raises an interesting question. Would folks be interested
in a more easily printed version of the PDF (no borders, black and
white, no hyperlinks, etc)?

Yes. (Color’s fine though, but it should degrade gracefully for those
without color printers.) I often print 2-up and double sided, so extra
margins and borders just mean that much less space for the text.

Also - I often take pdfs and convert them to palm format for reading
on the train, so tagging for that would be helpful.

–
- Adam

** Expert Technical Project and Business Management
**** System Performance Analysis and Architecture
****** [ http://www.adamfields.com ]

[ Adam Fields (weblog) - - entertaining hundreds of millions of eyeball atoms every day ] … Blog
[ Adam Fields Resume ]… Experience
[ Adam Fields | Flickr ] … Photos
[ http://www.aquicki.com/wiki ]…Wiki

45

Dave T. wrote:

On Mar 5, 2006, at 5:11 AM, Alain R. wrote:

You have to print (and bind?) your pdf yourself.

For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I’m surprised to
hear folks talking about doing that). It’s normally cheaper to buy the
bound book than buy a PDF and print it.

Bear in mind that for many people printing is an uncosted service
provided by their employer.

Having hard copy is valuable if you want it side by side with your work,
e.g. when following a tutorial. And to make notes on. It’s handy to be
able to print out a section of interest, say for learning while
commuting by train… and so on.

But, that raises an interesting question. Would folks be interested in a
more easily printed version of the PDF (no borders, black and white, no
hyperlinks, etc)?

In my case, I’m happy with the existing PDF format, and definitely
wouldn’t want to lose the hyperlinks.

Justin

46

Dave

> For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I'm

surprised to
> hear folks talking about doing that).

I’m even more surprised by people considering reading on screen a
500-page reference book (and not annotating it).

> It's normally cheaper to buy the bound book than buy a PDF and

print it.

1/ the pdf comes months before the paper version. Some are only
available in pdf.
2/ the paper used in the dead tree version (of AWDR) is too thin: if you
write/highlight on the recto, it shows on the verso.
I like writing in my books, highlighting, annotating, enriching them.

> I think you're discounting the real cost of creating a book. But,
> clearly, if you feel the PDFs don't give you value, I'd recommend

not
> buying them.

Once again, I never said nor wrote that, on the contrary. Reread my
messages.
You can’t stop people from seeing a parallel between pdf books and
downloaded music. iTunes albums are (much) cheaper than their boxed
plastic equivalents.

Alain

47

Dave T. wrote:

On Mar 5, 2006, at 3:54 AM, David S. wrote:

Dave: Any hope of persuading the publisher to produce a “site license”
for the PDF :slight_smile:

EMail [email protected]–we do them all the time :slight_smile:

Thanks for that info - it would be good if you could put it on the web
site.

Justin

48

On Sunday 05 March 2006 12:52 pm, Dave T. wrote:

On Mar 5, 2006, at 5:11 AM, Alain R. wrote:

You have to print (and bind?) your pdf yourself.

For me, the PDF was never intended to be printed (and I’m surprised
to hear folks talking about doing that). It’s normally cheaper to buy
the bound book than buy a PDF and print it.

Right, but in large (stupid) businesses, printing on the laser printer
is free
while buying a book costs money. Well,
free-for-the-user-not-the-company.

49

On 3/5/06, Alain R. [email protected] wrote:

Adam
> Suppose it’s a PDF and it costs $20 (which, incidentally, is 30%
> cheaper than the print version).

AWDR :

pdf = 22.50$ on PP
paper = 22$ on Amazon

And Amazon.com gives really steep discounts on books.

50

Your argument seems to be that:

a) you value the pdf higher than the paper book, for reasons you’ve
enumerated:

1/ the pdf comes months before the paper version. Some are only
available in pdf. 2/ the paper used in the dead tree version (of
AWDR) is too thin: if you write/highlight on the recto, it shows on
the verso. I like writing in my books, highlighting, annotating,
enriching them.

b) you think the pdf product is inferior and should be cheaper than the
paper book:

So in the end, I pay more for an ““inferior”” product. Additionaly,
the publisher never has to destroy an unsold copy, pay for storing,
transporting, printing, etc…

So something you value more is “inferior”… I hope it’s obvious why,
at this point, I feel compelled to say “WTF?”

I don’t mean this as a personal attack, so please don’t take it as one.
You paid what you paid for the eBook, but you “keep thinking 20$ is a
rip-off”. Why, if you keep thinking they’re priced too high, do you pay
that price? If they’re worth more to you than the price you pay, and
you’re not forced into buying them, where’s the problem? I just don’t
see the logic.

51

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:53:26AM -0800, Joe Van D. wrote:

And Amazon.com gives really steep discounts on books.
I guess the next question is - Amazon also sells PDFs, so do they give
equally steep discounts on those?

–
- Adam

** Expert Technical Project and Business Management
**** System Performance Analysis and Architecture
****** [ http://www.adamfields.com ]

[ Adam Fields (weblog) - - entertaining hundreds of millions of eyeball atoms every day ] … Blog
[ Adam Fields Resume ]… Experience
[ Adam Fields | Flickr ] … Photos
[ http://www.aquicki.com/wiki ]…Wiki

52

On 3/4/06, Alain R. [email protected] wrote:

Additionaly, the publisher never has to destroy an unsold copy, pay for

*1 - well, not so free as you have to reprint, and rebind.

Maybe some ruby would help?

class Buyer
attr_accessor :name
def initialize(name=‘’)
@name = name
end
end

class Seller
attr_accessor :name
def initialize(name=‘’)
@name = name
end
end

class Product
attr_accessor :name, :price
def initialize(name=‘’, price=0)
@name = name
@price = price
end
end

class Transaction
attr_accessor :name, :seller, :product, :value
def initialize(buyer, seller, product, value)
@seller = seller
@buyer = buyer
@product = product
case
when value > product.price then praise()
when value < product.price then bitch()
else satisfied()
end
end

def bitch
puts “This product costs too much!”
end

def praise
puts “This product is perfect!”
end

def satisfied
puts “This product is ok.”
end
end

buyer = Buyer.new(‘me’)
seller = Seller.new(‘Pragmatic Programmers’)
product = Product.new(‘Rails Book’, 20)

Transaction.new(buyer, seller, product, 15)
Transaction.new(buyer, seller, product, 20)
Transaction.new(buyer, seller, product, 25)

If that doesn’t help you, spend some time here:

Before I go, many thanks to the Dave’s for a fine product. I await
your decision on 1.1, and will decide then whether the value of what
you offer exceeds the price you charge.

Alain

Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–
Bill G. (aka aGorilla)
The best answer to most questions is “it depends”.

53

I remember reading somewhere that you have your authors use some sort of
XML
markup that you then turn into a PDF (presumably via XSL:FO). If this
is
the case there are a variety of tools to do differencing against XML,
perhaps a simple XSL transform could be developed to highlight changes
and
strike-through deletions?

3-ring binders give me the kind of chill usually reserved for “that code
has
been backed up to micro-fiche”. brrrrrr

-Steve
http://www.stevelongdo.com

54

On Mar 5, 2006, at 11:55 AM, Bill W. wrote:

[BW] This thread has gotten me wondering if it might not be worth
reconsidering the old notion of keeping documentation in 3-ring
binders. It
handled document updates pretty easily; “replace pages x-y with
these.”
Also made it pretty easy, for anyone who was interested, to see
exactly what
was being changed. Just a thought.

Funny you should say that. We’ve been wanting to do this, but
fulfillment seems to be a major issue. I have been wondering about a
“print it yourself” model, but that assumes that pages get written or
updated serially. We find that with the beta books, updates happen
all over the place.

But this is definitely a topic I want to explore.

Dave

55

+1

On 3/5/06, Adam F. [email protected] wrote:

[ http://www.aquicki.com/wiki ]…Wiki

Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–
Best Regards,
-Larry
“Work, work, work…there is no satisfactory alternative.”
— E.Taft Benson

56

On Mar 5, 2006, at 10:55 PM, Steve L. wrote:

I remember reading somewhere that you have your authors use some
sort of XML markup that you then turn into a PDF (presumably via
XSL:FO). If this is the case there are a variety of tools to do
differencing against XML, perhaps a simple XSL transform could be
developed to highlight changes and strike-through deletions?

I’ve played with these, but they tend to make the pages look like
Edward Scissorhands was reading them. I’m really bad this way: I’ll
tweak wording as I’m skimming through, leaving lots of small “add
this” “delete that” kind of deltas.

I’ve tried keeping a decent Changelog in the past, but that’s hard
to do when I’m in full flow.

Somewhere out there there’s a decent answer, and I’m a-waiting’

Dave

57

I’m loathe to mention this, on this particular mailing list, but Oracle
actually provides some interesting XML differencing tools inside of
their
(XDK) since 9iR2. I have used these in a shiver Java context, but
there
is a C/C++ API. Maybe someone out there would be willing to take on the
Ruby bindings for it?

Seems like the Johnny Depp action could be kept to a minimum if you
could do
differencing based on a time period. Show Chapter One from
one.month.ago.to.now? Either that or some sort of threshold ‘###’
number of
characters have changed on this page, showDiff(). Exclusions for code
citation blocks which should always show every change down to the single
character… Sorry no answer, but more requirements for a solution. So
while not a ‘helpful’ email, still helpful :wink:

58

Ryan Ripley wrote:

The point of the ebook is get the developer into the Ruby on Rails
world. At some point you are going to have to jump into the source
and continue to learn how to use this wonderful framework. If you

I’m very much hoping for this to be your opinion only…

are looking for someone to show you step by step how to write your
rails app then you are looking for a unicorn. However, if you are

… because some of us might just not be as bright and intelligent
as some others, or just not have all the time in the world.

looking to get a good head start at learning this framework, then
buy the book! Catch up on the new features at

Sorry. But when I shell out for a book that has “for intermediate to
expert” printed on its back, I expect to be able to use the information
contained in that book professionally. That is, to be able and build
a good and solid Rails app in this particular cause.

Fortunately, with the Agile Book I do get that feeling. Just not for
the 1.1 features, which is okay – since the book never promised me
to teach me on them.

the www.rubyonrails.com and this mailing list. I guess my points are 1.
The book gets you moving in a direction. 2. You will have to dig and
learn things on your own to keep momentum going…

Sorry, but that sounds too elitist for stupid little me not to feel
offended by it. Hopefully we’ll not start hating each other because of
that, I just felt a real urge to discuss the matter.

Thanks for the book Dave, you helped me to enjoy programming again.

Second that!

Best regards,
Raphael S.

59

Raphael,

I was just giving an opinion.

I don’t think that it is elitist to say that some self-learning and
effort
is required to become proficient with Ruby on Rails. I also think that
if
you do not have the time to dig into the source then you probably should
not
be betting your next meal on a programming career…

If you are looking to play around with a fun framework as a side hobby,
then
all the best to you! The agile book should help you right along with
this…

Finally, there isnt a book in the world that will make you an expert at
rails… You have to work for it.

I don’t hate you, I don’t even know you!

Good luck with your rails apps.

–Ryan
----- Original Message -----
From: “Raphael S.” [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 9:55 AM
Subject: [Rails] Re: Re: Re: Agile Web D. with Rails 1.1

60

Dave T. wrote:

But, that raises an interesting question. Would folks be interested in a
more easily printed version of the PDF (no borders, black and white, no
hyperlinks, etc)?

PDF’s good already. If I might suggest, code should be highlighted with
TextMate [Version 1.5 (906)] Default Highlight.

–
sig “kind regards” :name => " Arie Kusuma A. ", :callme => " Arie ",
:ym => " riyari3 ", :email => " [email protected] ".chop!,
:dotmac => " ariekusumaatmaja ", :blog => "
http://ariekusumaatmaja.wordpress.com ".chop, :pasrubylangage => %Q#
Learn & Enjoy English Together: IndoForums.com is for sale | HugeDomains #

Besoin d’apprendre beaucoup plus… deutsch, dutch, italie…
wind lang (donc etre solomon)