From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2002-12-01T03:47:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Document

Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@math.umd.edu> writes:

> I am completely new to Ruby, and I echo your frustration.  There should be
> a book intended to introduce Ruby to newbies.

I agree (and I believe there might be one in the works)


> I'd also like to see a book for people who don't know OO. I've programmed
> for several years, but I don't know OO.  Ruby is my first OO language.  I
> find that the current book jumps into classes before it's covered the
> basics like flow-control, functions and variables.  I still figured it
> out, but it was harder than it could have been.  It also starts on
> iterators before explaining more basic syntas.

Agreed - it assumes that you've programmed in some other language. I
certainly wouldn't recommend the PickAxe if you've never coded before.

> The 'Class#method' syntax and a couple other things are not
> explained either.

To be fair, it's there in the section on notation conventions.

> There could be a chapter or two for people who simply have never
> programmed before.  There's nothing wrong with starting classes
> sooner than you would in another language, but it still should come
> after more basic things.

Ah, but in Ruby, classes and objects _are_ the most basic thing :)

It was an interesting challenge trying to come up with a flow for that
book. We really wanted to cover the OO stuff in the very first
chapter, because we really dislike books that teach an OO language but
ignore classes and objects until chapter 20. In the end, we couldn't
quite do it, and had to add the quick intro chapter.

However, if I was writing as Ruby for Folks Who Have Never Programmed
Before book, I'd still start with the OO stuff. I just might not do it
using code examples. We're surrounded in our daily lives with objects
and classes, and it seems to be a very natural to teach computing by
drawing on that knowledge.

However, as you're said, the PickAxe is not that book.

Cheers


Dave