I am a newcomer to programming and wish to explore ruby. Can anyone
recomend
a book for this purpose.
John K. wrote:
I am a newcomer to programming and wish to explore ruby. Can anyone
recomend a book for this purpose.
Pickaxe.
John K. wrote:
I am a newcomer to programming and wish to explore ruby. Can anyone
recomend
a book for this purpose.
I think you have to buy “the pickaxe” for the language reference, which
is about 1/3 of the book. For a good tutorial, I would recommend
“Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional(2nd ed)”.
In spite of its flaws, I also recommend “Beginning Ruby”. I have a copy
and
am using it to learn Ruby after wandering off in left field with "why
the
lucky stiff"s online introduction that was entertaining but left a lot
of
explaining missing. Walk through your code, guys, as you are explaining
how
things work!!!
There are several weaknesses to Peter C.'s book. The book has a
slight
bias for the UNIX environment. I work on Windows XP, so that was an
issue
for me. The $stdin.gets is not explained. Because of the enormous
number
of topics, you get a feeling of being rushed and that a lot is being
left
out because of a need to scope in. I felt that in Chapter 12 that Peter
could have tied things together better than he did. What calls what and
how
his Eliza look alike all hangs together. Important details are left
out,
such as what is happening in “class TestWordPlay <
Test::Unit::TestCase” on
p. 316. Yes, he mentions that you are establishing a hierarchy between
a
new class TestWordPlay" and Ruby system classes Test::Unit, (to use the
assist methods), and TestCase in an earlier part of the book, but it
would
be nice to have reminded the student of that. It would have been nice
to
have some reference to “regulare expressions” outside of the book. If
you
go to Wikipedia, Regular expression - Wikipedia, you
find
code characters such as the “^” that mean something entirely different
than
how it is used in Ruby. Here is a web site to test any Ruby regular
expression you write, http://www.rubyxp.com/ I felt that the chapter
8 on
Error Handling had poor examples. And I wish that authors could avoid
“foo”
in every book they write as it is never clear to a beginner if that
means
something special and the joke is dead. Catching and throwing are not
clearly explained on page 187. Too rushed. The author needs to walk
the
reader through each line of code and explain what is happening,
instruction
by instruction. The book talks about escapting out of a block but the
example is not IN a block with code outside of it to show the logic flow
properly. Would be nice to have a chapter on queues, heaps, stacks, and
dequeues. Maybe applied to searching a binary tree. While Part 3 is
interesting, I will be picking up a separate book on Ruby on Rails to
learn
that. So 62 pages could have been saved there to make room for that
essential but missing chapter on Ruby data structures. Chapter 15 on
Networking, Sockets, and Daemons…scream!..overload! Put Chapters 13
through 16 in a separate book. And improve the index.
Today I also put in an oder for Algorithms in a Nutshell by George
Heineman,
and Programming Ruby 1.9: The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide (Facets of
Ruby)
by Dave T., which is the latest edition of “the pickaxe book”.
Learning a new language is always work. Even after my 127th language it
is
work. (Actually I lost count after I went over 100 back in the 1980s.)
No Sam
Chris D. wrote:
For learning the Ruby language I’d have to go with David A. Black’s “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist”.
I think that even if you are an experienced programmer trying to learn
ruby, “The Well Grounded Rubyist” is a stretch as a beginning book. And
if you are new to programming altogether, I don’t think it would be
appropriate.
For learning the Ruby language I’d have to go with David A. Black’s “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist”.
On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 02:34:14 +0900
John K. [email protected] wrote:
I am a newcomer to programming and wish to explore ruby. Can anyone
recomend a book for this purpose.
Don’t restrict yourself to books. There are many excellent online
tutorials.
For example, I started out with these two:
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8545174/Whys-Poignant-Guide-to-Ruby
http://www.ember.co.nz/resources/whys-poignant-guide-to-ruby/
Also, Ruby is an excellent beginner’s language… you’ll do well with it.
Hi –
On Thu, 3 Sep 2009, 7stud – wrote:
Chris D. wrote:
For learning the Ruby language I’d have to go with David A. Black’s “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist”.I think that even if you are an experienced programmer trying to learn
ruby, “The Well Grounded Rubyist” is a stretch as a beginning book.
I kind of hope not – that’s the main target audience 
The book
starts at the beginning; no Ruby experience assumed or required.
David
–
David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC / http://www.rubypal.com
Ruby/Rails training, mentoring, consulting, code-review
Latest book: The Well-Grounded Rubyist (The Well-Grounded Rubyist)
September Ruby training in NJ has been POSTPONED. Details to follow.
H –
On Tue, 8 Sep 2009, Jörg Hagmann wrote:
I’m not a programmer, and Ruby is my first (and only) programming language. I
bought 4 books, all of them good in their way, and managed to write the
(simple) programmes I needed. But I didn’t really understand what I was
doing; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t and I had to go by trial and
error (and copying from sources).This changed after I read “The Well Grounded Rubyist”. It is quite simply
superb, and what it achieves is contained in its title. Thanks, David.
You’re very welcome, and thanks for your kind comments!
David
–
David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC / http://www.rubypal.com
Ruby/Rails training, mentoring, consulting, code-review
Latest book: The Well-Grounded Rubyist (The Well-Grounded Rubyist)
September Ruby training in NJ has been POSTPONED. Details to follow.
I’m not a programmer, and Ruby is my first (and only) programming
language. I bought 4 books, all of them good in their way, and managed
to write the (simple) programmes I needed. But I didn’t really
understand what I was doing; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t
and I had to go by trial and error (and copying from sources).
This changed after I read “The Well Grounded Rubyist”. It is quite
simply superb, and what it achieves is contained in its title. Thanks,
David.
Jörg
Prof. Jörg Hagmann-Zanolari MD
University of Basel
Department of Biomedicine
Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics
Mattenstrasse 28
CH-4058 Basel
Switzerland
Phone +41 (0)61 267 3565
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 2:22 AM, 7stud –[email protected] wrote:
I think that even if you are an experienced programmer trying to learn
ruby, “The Well Grounded Rubyist” is a stretch as a beginning book. And
if you are new to programming altogether, I don’t think it would be
appropriate.
I disagree with both statements. It seems more than appropriate for
beginners.