From: Peter Burns <rictic@...>
Date: 2005-10-18T13:22:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for Python/OO developer

> > I was in the same boat as you Achim, experienced Python guy who got
> > into Ruby because of Rails.  Now it's my favorite language.
>
> Interesting to here, that there are developers which converted from
> python to ruby. The syntax looks a little bit scaring to me. In this
> point I wonder about myself, because I was a hardcore-C++-template-guy
> for many years before I stared using python more and more.

Yeah, I wouldn't have thought that I would prefer ruby for the average
scripting project, but the language has some more kick to it; my
programs are shorter, and I can do more cool metaprogramming.  Of
course, part of that is probably the fact that I learned Ruby after I
had a few more years of experience, so I guess I shouldn't be
surprised that my skills with it are more sophisticated.

> They look quite good, but I hesitate to buy two expensive books, just to
> give Rails a try.

The first edition of the Pickaxe is free, and it's the only version
that I've used.  It's all over the net, but why's site is serving it
particularly fast today: http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/pickaxe/

If you do pick up the Agile Web Development Book, one thing that I
wished they would have covered was Active Migrations, which let you
define and modify your database tables in pure ruby. (domain specific
languages rock)