Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

Colonel Panic writes "Why the lucky stiff has written one of the most unusual (and poignant) books about programming that I've ever encountered. The best description for it so far (seen on comp.lang.ruby) is that it's sort of like 'The Little Prince meets SICP'. However, it defies all attempts at description (at least in this small space), you've got to read it for yourself. Like SICP, the full text is available for free. This one is destined to become a classic - it will likely be known to future generations of jobless American computer scientists as 'The Fox Book.'"

Comments

There's also a mailing list and a project site...

[tcopeland]

...for the code for the book.

The list archives are here and the project site is here.

How right you are

[GCP]

Most serious programmers have tons of studying to do. So many tools and interacting technologies that change so rapidly....

A "classic", to me, is a book that puts the maximum amount of useful and usable knowledge in my head with the least amount of effort. This doesn't necessarily mean the shortest book. A "terse" book can take more time and effort to read than a longer book with better explanations.

But a book like this, with such a low useful_stuff/useless_fluff ratio, is not my idea of a classic.

Ruby needs more than this

[Anonymous Coward]

Like more robust libraries and some better documentation. I know mr. stiff has contributed to that end and I hope he doesn't waste more of his time on silly story books!

When I moved from Perl to Python for big projects, it was pretty cool. I could read my code, and it was a lot more consistent because of the built-in object support. Python doesn't exactly register high on the "elegance" meter but it works.

Then I tried Ruby .. WOW, code just flowed from my fingers and I was constant amazed at how little effort it took to make a well-written program.

But, Python has all the docs and libs. So at work I use Python. I enjoy the new features that are being bolted on here and there, but it's got all the signs of a language that peaked in popularity before the design was finished.

So I don't use Ruby for much except code generation and other little tasks. I want to though.. I'm waiting until somebody writes better libs and docs, or at least until I have the time to contribute.

So please, less pretentious web sites, more English documentation.

Re:Ruby needs more than this

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Please try here, here, and here. Oh, and here

Re:I like the style, but not the content

[avdi]

A variable is a box

Wrong. In C/C++ a variable is a box. In Ruby (as in Python and many other dynamic languages) a variable has reference symantics, making the "nickname" metaphore reasonably apt.