From: Amr Malik <amrmalik@...>
Date: 2006-01-21T01:48:09+09:00
Subject: Re: My Thought on the "Pickaxe book" (from a Ruby novice)

Alex Combas wrote:
> I'm working through the book myself
> but I personally find it a little tedious.
> Its not a bad book so far, but I would
> have to rate it just so-so compared to
> other programming books I've read.
> 
> One way I think it can improve is
> by having unified source code for programs.
> They seem to have this style that they
> show a little piece of a program, then another
> piece a few pages later, then another piece
> maybe even a few chapters later... its really
> frustrating not being able to get a program
> to run because its code is scattered across
> half the book.
> 
> I would upgrade my rating from so-so to good
> if they would unify more of the source code
> in the next version of the book.
> 
> Just my $0.02 :)

As a newcomer I would tend to agree with this. What I did with my 
PickAxeII was to actually split it along the spine into 3 more 
manageable books and rebind (DIY style) each of the 3 smaller parts are 
as follows:

1: Part I (Facets of Ruby)
2: Part II, III (Ruby in its setting, with objects explained at the end)
3: Part IV upto the end (Bulky reference)

I tend to get some reading done at night and I found it was getting a 
bit too bulky for reading just the introdcutory parts. I don't really 
see why I should carry around the bulk of the reference when I won't 
even be using it for a while. I think it would be better to split the 
book in 3 physical sections, and market them as one book (another 
innovative thing to consider for Pragmatic Programmers.)

Also, I think that the book jumps around with its examples and tended to 
frustrate me in the beginning when I was trying to use it as a tutorial. 
What I ended up doing was take the 3 parts and read them buffet style. 
Each chapter explains concepts well, if you don't mind not having a 
cohesive strategy of code examples supporting the theoretical material.

So, how am I going about learning Ruby?

My approach is to read PickAxeII in conjunction with excellent tutorials 
out there (Why's and Chris Pines come to mind). Read tutorial, See what 
PickAxe has to say about it, read some more tutorial read the object 
explanations etc. etc.

Right now, I would say to the newcomers to use Chris Pine's book in 
conjunction with Why's tutorial and the Parts I, II and III of the 
PickAxeII. To understand Objects in Ruby read the "A little Ruby, A lot 
of objects" tutorial. Even though I tend to get lost towards the end of 
the tutorial with the meta-classes/meta-meta-objects etc.

So, fellow newbies, this is how I'm going about it:
1. Chris Pines PDF book from PragProgg'rs (the pdf book is well worth 
it)
2. Why's Poignant guide (take frequent breathers and come back to it. 
You'll find that Why is literally sneaking ruby concepts through your 
subconscious)
3. PickAxe2 : Part I, II, II (occasionally Part IV, but ri is always 
easier and much lighter)
4. Brian Marick's "A little ruby A lot of objects"

Unfortunately PickAxeII is NOT the greatest Ruby tutorial out there, 
even though Part I & II are excellent introductory texts, but the 
pedagogical style suffers from inconsistency and code doesn't exactly 
build on theory. I still constider it an excellent reference book and 
frequently re-read parts to understand what's going on.

I personally would like to see some of the Japanese texts translated 
which explain the internals of Ruby. One would be the Ruby Hacking Guide 
which Why talks about in his article on Ruby GC. 
(http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theFullyUpturnedBin.html).

Either that or I'll have to learn Japanese. :)

-Amr

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