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ruby book

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abe

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Dec 7, 2010, 9:34:19 PM12/7/10
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i am looking for a good ruby book for a developer who has a c
programming over 10 years and 10 years in vb
i looked at the cooper book (beginnig ruby) -- seemed too basic,
anybody can recommend a better book than the cooper book

--abe

Gene

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Dec 7, 2010, 10:10:38 PM12/7/10
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I like the pickaxe book _Programming Ruby_ by Dave Thomas.

Stu

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Dec 7, 2010, 9:53:49 PM12/7/10
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Hi abe.

I went through a period where I bought many ruby books. Sadly most books suck.

The books I recomend in this order:

Well Rounded Rubiest << touches on the theory very canonocal.

The Ruby Programming Language << states it's modeled after k&r writing
style. Then again no one can write like Kernighan. This book is more
of a reference.

Beyond that Metaprogramming Ruby seems good.
Design patterns in ruby is nice if you haven't read gang of four or
looking for direct dialect translation.

The rest are crap or so called cookbooks created for a money grab a
couple of years ago.

Ian M. Asaff

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Dec 7, 2010, 10:38:40 PM12/7/10
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[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

I second metaprogramming ruby. Not only taught me ruby idioms, but showed me
how to be a better programmer.

--sent from myu droid. typoos courtesy of droid's crappy keyboarsd

James Edward Gray II

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Dec 7, 2010, 11:12:17 PM12/7/10
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On Dec 7, 2010, at 8:53 PM, Stu wrote:

> The rest are crap or so called cookbooks created for a money grab a
> couple of years ago.

I definitely do not agree. I love Programming Ruby and many others.

James Edward Gray II

Stu

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Dec 8, 2010, 12:12:55 AM12/8/10
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It's interesting. Programming ruby was one of the first english ruby
books and doesn't fall into the ruby (after rails popularity) money
grab.. My diatribe was not specifically with that book. Though I do
find it to be a bit redundant now that we have Matz' book.

Also the Ruby language is unique enough that it shouldn't be grokked
purely from a reference manual style book. There are deeper concepts
and paradigm shifts in ruby that go beyond your basic object oriented
and functional languages.

I am also not alone with my opinion:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/bookstore/

Of course the first edition is online for the OPS review:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/

I still stand by my suggestions. Both TWGR and MR deal purely on
paradigm. Everything else seems like learning C from a book that
avoids showing your pointers or even worse never gets into data
structures.

Robert Klemme

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Dec 8, 2010, 3:03:37 AM12/8/10
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On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 3:53 AM, Stu <s...@rubyprogrammer.net> wrote:

> The books I recomend in this order:
>
> Well Rounded Rubiest << touches on the theory very canonocal.

I guess you mean David's "The Well-Grounded Rubyist".
http://www.manning.com/black2/

I'd recommend that as well.

Kind regards

robert

--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/

William Rutiser

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Dec 8, 2010, 9:20:48 AM12/8/10
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We all have different learning styles and book preferences.

This one is a thoroughly researched and carefully written free work in
progress:
http://ruby.runpaint.org/

--Bill

Chris Hulan

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Dec 8, 2010, 12:34:29 PM12/8/10
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I find if you recognize an authors name from posts to this group, it has a good chance of being a good book
otherwise, not so much

YMMV

Cheers
Chris

Chris Hulan

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Dec 8, 2010, 12:34:42 PM12/8/10
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Chris Hulan

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Dec 8, 2010, 12:35:50 PM12/8/10
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Stu

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Dec 8, 2010, 1:27:11 PM12/8/10
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Yes that one. email lists don't have edit button like in forums. I
definitely botched the spelling. Should have read:

"The Well-Grounded Rubyist << touches on the theory and is very canonical"

The book is a bit wordy at times but it's obvious the author cares to
make his point.

runpaint looks cool. It's search-able.

zuerrong

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Dec 8, 2010, 8:34:56 PM12/8/10
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2010/12/8 Gene <gene.r...@gmail.com>:

>
> I like the pickaxe book _Programming Ruby_ by Dave Thomas.
>
>

me second.
This is a wonderful book for ruby beginners.

OZAWA Sakuro

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Dec 8, 2010, 10:18:17 PM12/8/10
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It would be nice if yugui's One-Giraffe Book "Hajimete no Ruby"
(literal translation: "New to Ruby")
from O'Reilly Japan were translated to non-Japanese language.
This book is not a translation of Two-Giraffe Book "Learning Ruby".

Its aimed readers are programmers with expericne of other programming languages.

--
OZAWA Sakuro

"I think we can agree, the past is over." - George W. Bush

Jose Hales-Garcia

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Dec 9, 2010, 12:01:19 AM12/9/10
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Besides the online API docs, I've found 'Ruby Best Practices' useful... http://rubybestpractices.com/

Jose

abe

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Dec 9, 2010, 12:54:31 AM12/9/10
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On Dec 9, 12:01 am, Jose Hales-Garcia <jose.halesgar...@stat.ucla.edu>
wrote:

so i gather that pickaxe book _Programming Ruby_ by Dave Thomas is at
best
thanks...

Stu

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Dec 9, 2010, 2:22:22 AM12/9/10
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de novo caveat lector

Yukihiro Matsumoto's book entitled The Ruby Programming Language
ISBN-10: 0596516177
is the best. =)

Seriously if I had to get rid of every Ruby book I have and could keep
only one. This is the one I would keep. In case you don't know it's
written by the language creator.

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