Re: suggestions to the Ruby community

On Fri, 30 Aug 2002 05:23:23 -0400, Phil Tomson wrote:

> In article <[e-mail]>, stibbs
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>On Thu, 29 Aug 2002 20:12:24 -0400, Lyle Johnson wrote:
>>
>>> stibbs wrote:
>>> 
>>>>Hi, first i would like to state that i absolutely love Ruby more than
>>>>any other language i use (perl, python, PHP, javascript, and now
>>>>ruby). Others i work with also have taken a look at Ruby and most have
>>>>the same feeling about it i do. That being said, we found that there
>>>>is a huge lack of english documentation and therefore would consume to
>>>>much of our time to learn it and apply it for use in our work.
>>>>
>>> The Ruby book list:
>>> 
>>>     http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyBookList
>>> 
>>> lists a considerable number of English-language books. "Programming
>>> Ruby", the one that most Ruby users consider to be a "must-have", is
>>> freely available on-line here:
>>> 
>>>     http://www.rubycentral.com/book
>>> 
>>> It's also included in the Windows installer for Ruby. Some of the
>>> other books, such as the "Ruby Developer's Guide", focus more on
>>> contributed modules for GUI development, database access, XML and web
>>> services.
>>
>>Not to sound rude, but as i stated in my first post "Please take into
>>considera tion my co-workers and I do know how to use google and ri, we
>>have found all the documentation and articles that are out there on
>>Ruby." We have read through the Documentation and online books you refer
>>to in this post, we also know about the dead-tree books that are out
>>there on Ruby. I am sharing our overall point of view with the community
>>after having done some thorough research. It's an opinion and we all
>>know what opinions are comparable to, so take it or leave it.
>>
>>
> OK, so what kinds of topics should future Ruby books (of either the
> dead-tree or online variety) cover that are not covered (or only
> superficially covered) in current Ruby books?
> 
> I can think of a few topics that might make good articles or perhaps
> chapters in a book:
> * Ruby and SWIG (although this is covered somewhat in the Ruby
> Developer's Guide it would be nice to have a more in-depth treatment) *
> REXML (perhaps a whole Ruby and XML book would be in order, I believe
> Perl and Python both have similar books)
> 
> I'm sure there are others, what else?

In my original post i thought i made it clear that i am referring to the
overall online english documentation for modules/methods and ruby in
general (since that is what i specifically stated in my original post). I
don't want to get side tracked or off topic on what seems to be a not so
pleasant subject for discussion in this newsgroup. Personally, books would
be a second concern for me until the online english documentation got up
to par organizationally and with the thoroughness and clarity of
python.org's documentation. This is something the community as a whole can
take part in, where as compared to a book which is usually dictated by one
person or a very small handful of people.

I was just trying to give an inside look at one companies decision dealing
with Ruby. I also happened to mention on a personal note that i know
people that have tried ruby and even though they liked it a lot, they
*all* eventually made the decision to go back with their prior scripting
language within a few weeks with their reason being an overall lack of
clear and thorough (english) documentation.

So, i got up the balls and decided to make the post just to make sure
people in the community realized that people and possibly companies who
would otherwise be adopting ruby are not due to the english documentation
issue.

If the community already realized this issue to the same extent that i
have observed, I apologize for my original post.

>>> Most, if not all, of Ruby's built-in modules are documented in
>>> "Programming Ruby".
> <snip>
>>
>>> is it that is changing between the currently-available Perl 5.x and
>>> Perl 6 that will suddenly nullify the things that have drawn large
>>> numbers of "converts" from the Perl and Python camps?
>>Every person that i know of who "converted" to ruby has since long
>>converted back to using python as their main language due to the
>>documentation issue, and i have quite a few online friends i have kept
>>in contact with for quite some years that did this. And i find most
>>people that i know do like perl but they use python for the more
>>clean/realistic OO. I think that rather than read through my original
>>post and look at what you can pick apart about it, it might be a good
>>idea to just try and see where i might be coming from. Judging from your
>>reply to my original post, it seems you assume i'm just some newbie who
>>has been looking at ruby for a few days and didnt put much effort in
>>finding what online documentation is actually available for ruby (even
>>though i stated the opposite in my original post).
> 
> So again, could you give us some _specific_ examples of actual

I feel that in my original post i was specific as i could be. If people
here feel that the the overall online english ruby documentation does not
need improvement, great.

> documentation you would like to see for Ruby that doesn't currently
> exist? This could help us prioritize.  I've done a good bit of Ruby
> programming in the last couple of years and I've seen the documentation
> situation improve greatly during that time, however I'm sure there is
> still room for improvement.  Also, please consider this newsgroup as a
> source of information as well - you'll find that answers come pretty
> quickly here.
> 
> Phil

I took into consideration this newsgroup and also perl's and python's, all
seem to have a very helpful user community. The same with the mailing
lists for each language.

I think the overall best idea would be to look into the the cpan offer.
The post is a thread under this topic and can be found here:


http://groups.google.com/
groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=a05111b24b9945650a3ff%40%5B63.120.19.221%5D