From: Wilson Bilkovich <wilsonb@...>
Date: 2006-11-06T10:21:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Book wanted: Metaprogramming in Ruby

On 11/5/06, Jay Levitt <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote:
> Now that Hal, David B, Curt, and others have some spare time:
>
> I'm an old-school, procedural programmer.  I skipped C++ and Java, and went
> straight from PL/I to Ruby.  Wow, times have changed!
>
> So I haven't developed the idioms that powerful languages like Ruby make
> possible: reflection, method_missing-isms, binding, continuations, lambdas,
> blocks, etc.  My code still looks like it used to, only prettier.
>
> I've seen some articles on metaprogramming online, but none are both (a)
> soup-to-nuts walkthroughs and (b) Ruby-specific.  Besides, I think this is
> a topic worthy of a book-length screed.  Ideally, it'd assume basic
> knowledge of Ruby syntax and of programming in general, but not of dynamic
> programming.  Maybe write it with a C programmer in mind.
>
> Anyone wanna write this next?
>

I agree that that would be a book worth writing.

In the meantime, have you seen this Ruby Quiz?
http://rubyquiz.com/quiz67.html

Doing that without looking at the answers first will show you most of
the useful metaprogramming ropes. Coming straight from PL/I (JCL in
the house!) will be a bit of a cold splash, but I think it is a good
(if tough) intro.