From: m4dc4p <jgbailey@...>
Date: 2005-11-23T02:37:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Help requested: new book

A section on domain specific languages (DSLs) could be good. I've been
working on one for an internal project for the last several weeks and
have learned a lot about Ruby's dynamic nature as a result. Creating
classes and methods at run time, plus method_missing  really makes for
some cool and expressive code.

Mark  Watson wrote:
> I would appreciate some help defining the topics for a new free web
> book(*) that I am planning on writing. The tentative table of contents
> (which will change - especially if you make good suggestions :-) is:
>
> Enterprise Ruby
>
> Preface
> Section I: Core Technologies
> Chapter 1: Web Services
> Chapter 2: Dynamic Content Using Servlets and WEBrick
> Chapter 3: Ruby on Rails
> Section II: Enterprise Recipes
> Chapter 4: Adding Spell Checking and Correction
> Chapter 5: Using AJAX
> Chapter 6: Adding Search
> Chapter 7: Handling Documents
> Chapter 8: Report Generation
> Section III: Unusual and Useful Ruby Hacks
> Index
>
> There are many great books on using Ruby in enterprise settings and
> what I am trying to do here is filling in more information on topics
> that are not covered elsewhere to any great extent. This is why I am
> only planning one long chapter on using Ruby on Rails. A lot of Section
> II will be implemented on the Rails platform, but I am assuming that
> any reader has already worked through a few Ruby on Rails tutorials and
> is likely to have already implemented a few web applications using RoR.
>
> I wrote a free web book "Loving Lisp, or the Savvy Programmer's Secret
> Weapon" a few years ago and I received a lot of great ideas, feedback,
> error corrections, etc. from the Common Lisp community. I am not known
> in the Ruby programming community so I might not get the same level of
> help, but I am hopeful :-)
>
> (*) I am going to release this as a free PDF file under a Creative
> Commons license, but I would also like to find a publisher who would
> make hard copy versions available to readers who want a physical book.