From: Curt Hibbs <curt@...>
Date: 2004-03-23T22:57:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Need some advice on PickAxe II

Nathaniel Talbott wrote:
>
> On Mar 23, 2004, at 05:57, Chad Fowler wrote:
>
> > Personally, I never pull out the pickaxe as a reference.  I think its
> > real strength (and you and Andy's core strength as a unit) is to help
> > people understand the high level concepts that are important when
> > learning a dynamic language like Ruby.  To me, the biggest bang for
> > the buck would be for you to stay at that level, and leave API
> > documentation to the ruby-doc folks (which could, in this open source
> > community, theoretically be any/all of us).
>
> I guess I'm just the opposite... the number one thing I've used my
> Pickaxe for is an API reference. I like having a dead tree form I can
> thumb through looking for what I want, and the Pickaxe goes everywhere
> with me in my backpack. The second most useful part to me has been the
> language reference - when learning Ruby it seemed like I found
> something new and cool about the syntax in there every other day. I
> personally picked up the high level concepts of a dynamic language
> mostly elsewhere, both before and after discovering Ruby. Different
> strokes for different folks, I guess.

I would side with Chad on this one -- I don't use it for an API reference.

There are many different styles of books that serve different purposes,
tutorial, task oriented, detailed reference, etc. It would be a mistake to
try to cover all of these in one book.

To build on current strengths, to minimize overlap and maximize the use of
the talents of the Ruby community here's how I would like to see things
progress:

  Tutorial -- Pick Axe

  Task-Oriented -- The Ruby Way

  Detailed Reference -- The ruby-doc web site

Curt
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