From: Bill Kelly Date: 2004-03-24T07:15:35+09:00 Subject: Re: Need some advice on PickAxe II From: "Phil Tomson" > In article , > 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'd just like to second Nathaniel's opinion. I also carry the Pickaxe in > my backpack/briefcase and use it as a reference both at home and at work. "Third!" :) I use Pickaxe as a reference... however I definitely agree with a prior poster's sentiments about the "sectioned alphabetical" nature of the reference chapters. I can never just dive into the reference section of the Pickaxe (say looking for Date or Time) and find it, because I don't know what section to look in. So I always go to the index first. [It's a great index though!!! :-D] I suspect if 'ri' were as complete as the Pickaxe, though, I'd probably stop using Pickaxe for reference and switch to 'ri'... Regards, Bill