From: Brian Marick <marick@...>
Date: 2001-09-23T03:05:15+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:21552] Re: Math and Programming

I've decided to go ahead with the book. So, to avoid giving prospective 
readers the wrong impression, let me say that the book is not going to be 
math-centric. Factorial is the limit, and I don't think factorial will 
scare people off. My wife doesn't like math, but she had no problems with 
factorial (or recursion for that matter).

The rest of the book will be much more about strings and arrays and 
non-math classes.

(I maintain factorial is a good example because it can be used to show the 
surprising fact that integers are objects and arithmetic is message sends. 
That kind of thing is the theme of the book. I could show that with def 
double(n) 2*n; end, but I think programs that do completely trivial things 
disappoint readers.)

--
Brian Marick, marick@testing.com
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