From: Karsten Meier <discussionruby@...>
Date: 2004-07-18T18:12:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Free Ruby "Cookbook" (48.71% done)

Randy Lawrence wrote:
> Anyone know if this is moving along or stalled?
> 
> Here's the current status from:
> 
> PLEAC - Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook
> http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby/

I have contributed 18 recipes over the last year, so it is not stalled.
But a single recipe is only 0.3 % of the whole book, and there were not 
many other contributions,
so the perceived moving is quite slow.
But when I use google to find help for a ruby problem, I find quite often
the pleac cookbook recipes, so I think the project is quite useful.
And if you want to know how ruby and python are different, here you see 
it in real live examples.

There are still some pretty easy recipes open, but for most recipes  I have
needed more than an hour to check what is really needed, write it ruby,
test it that it is really correct, and try to bring it in a form that I 
think the reader would
like to read, and ensure that the style (like spacing ) matches the 
other entries.

The more complex recipes are difficult to translate in a different 
language if you don't have the
context, So I think for most recipes you need to have the perl cookbook 
to make a good contribution.
But if have the Perl Cookbook, you can get very deep insights during the 
"translation"
of a recipe.

But lets look where more contributions are helpful, so you can see were 
you can contribute:

> Table of Contents
> Foreword
> 1. Strings (89.5%)
> 2. Numbers (94.7%)
We miss an entry how to make real random numbers.

> 3. Dates and Times (91.7%)
> 4. Arrays (100.0%)
> 5. Hashes (94.1%)
> 6. Pattern Matching (18.8%)
This section needs some more contribution. But you need to know perls 
and rubys regular expression
to translate it.

> 7. File Access (41.3%)
> 8. File Contents (28.6%)
> 9. Directories (76.9%)
There are a lot of open entries in the file and directories chapters

> 10. Subroutines (100.0%)
> 11. References and Records (6.2%)
Some of the entries a very easy to write in ruby,
like "Making Hashes of Arrays ", basically you need to tell the reader
that it is really so simple, but there are also some which you need a 
little more work

> 12. Packages, Libraries, and Modules (60.0%)
There are recipes about integrating C code. It would be great if 
somebody can contribute for them

> 13. Classes, Objects, and Ties (56.2%)
I have a few recipes for this section in my queue. I will ask here about 
some problems I have with them.

> 14. Database Access (58.3%)
Some recipes with the bdb database are open

> 15. User Interfaces (10.5%)
Open recipes about
* terminal I/O
* curses
* TK

> 16. Process Management and Communication (18.2%)
Pipes, shared variables, signals and signal handler open

> 17. Sockets (10.5%)
Mostly open
> 18. Internet Services (0.0%)
DNS, FTP, News, Email, Ping.
A lot of open entries which are quite simple.

> 19. CGI Programming (20.0%)
> 20. Web Automation (3.1%)
And of  course a lot more examples about web programming are needed.

If you want to contribute, check the sections 6 and 7 of the FAQ at:
http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac-faq.html

Regards

Karsten Meier