From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2004-12-12T15:03:44+09:00
Subject: Re: [ADV] Want to Write a Book?

David G. Andersen wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 10:52:18AM +0900, Dave Thomas scribed:
> 
>>I have no fixed ideas on the titles, but to give you an idea of the 
>>kinds of things I'm looking for, you might well see books come out 
>>named something like:
>>
>>  * Writing Ruby Extensions
>>  * Using Ruby in the Semantic Web
>>  * Creating E-Commerce Sites using Rails
>>  * Rapid Application Development with Iowa
>>  * Migrating from Java to Ruby
> 
> 
> A book I wish I had the time to write, but I'm swamped:
> 
>   Using Ruby in Scientific Applications
>    - Numerical applications
>    - Analysis
>    - Data Acquisition 
>    - Control
>    - Visualization 
>    - Data archiving and retrieval
>  
> I haven't had a chance to play with the acquisition and control
> aspects yet, so I don't actually know what would go into this book
> -- but I really wish I already had it on my bookshelf.  Perhaps it
> would turn into a giant users manual for NArray, but I think there's
> a lot more.  I promise to buy copies and hand them to my colleagues
> and students if someone writes it. ;)
> 
>   -Dave
> 


I'd be interested in reading that book, and maybe helping out with it. 
Some more chapters of this hypothetical book that would be nice to have:

   - Simulation, modeling, random number generation
   - Interfacing with other tools: gnuplot, Matlab, Excel, R, etc.
   - Using ruby efficiently: extensions, mmap, narray
   - Crafting domain-specific sublanguages for scientific apps
   - Ruby and distributed/parallel processing
   - Managing legacy C and Fortran code
   - Ruby in a real-time environment?

Some folks on this list (Ara Howard and Bil Kleb come to mind) are 
eminently qualified to write on those topics.