From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-08-15T11:26:49+09:00
Subject: Re: A few newbie questions...

>> Speaking of the "PickAxe Book", how much is missing
>> from the on-line version?  (I've noticed that a lot
>> of chapter 18 is not there.)
>
>
> ? I hadn't noticed any major omissions.
>
> It's not crippleware, in other words.
>
> I *have* noticed some annoying anti-features: No page
> numbers, much less links to them; and even more
> importantly, the figures seem to be missing.
>
> But as for huge chunks of text missing: I wasn't aware
> of any, but I'll go look.
>
> I'll be curious about what Dave says.
>
> Hal


In defence of Dave/Andy/OnlinePickAxe, I have learned Ruby from the ground
up using Matz's Ruby in a Nutshell (book), OnlinePickAxe, and ri
(astoundingly beautiful command-line reference into OnlinePickAxe
material).  Like everyone else, I notice that OnlinePickAxe/ri "suffers"
from not being able to trace down page references or view figures, but
this is just not a big deal.  I'm not sure why, but it's just not a big
deal.  I can always find the information I need, and that's not because
I'm very experienced in Ruby - I'm not.

Given a free language with free third-party documentation, we're doing
very well indeed.

Cheers,
Gavin