Ruby Cookbook
Morton Goldberg
haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
buying or not.
Regards, Morton
James Edward Gray II
Keep in mind it did *just* come out (I got mine in the mail
yesterday) and it's over 900 pages. You'll probably need to wait a
bit for full reviews.
Just glancing through it though I'm pretty jazzed up about reading
it. There is a metric ton of content in there and it looks to cover
just about everything to some degree. I could see it being a very
helpful tool for most people, since your area of interest likely
receives at least some coverage.
Also, the lost dinosaur example had me laughing out loud! ;)
Fair warning: I wrote six of the recipes in that book, so my
opinions are probably biased. I also have done very little real
reading yet. Buyer beware.
James Edward Gray II
David Pollak
It's one of the 4 books I've got open when I'm doing Ruby/Rails coding
(the others are Pickaxe, Rails/Agile, and Ruby for Rails.)
--
--------
David Pollak's Ruby Playground
http://dppruby.com
Dark Ambient
Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
Stuart
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
Mike Douglas
> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
--
Mike
Jim Morris
PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)
--
Jim Morris, http://blog.wolfman.com
James Mead
Rough Cuts program. I assumed I would be entitled to download the PDF
during development and after publication, but it turns out I was only
entitled to download it during development. There were also problems
with random numbers embedded in the text of the table of contents when
I did download it. I've now got my money back from Safari and am still
trying to understand exactly what I should have got.
I agree O'Reilly seems not to have worked out how to compete with the
Pragmatic Programmers. I've purchased numerous eBooks and beta books
from them with no problems at all.
James
http://blog.floehopper.org
Mike Berrow
As I hate transcribing code fragments, I looked at the
Safari site for a zip of the code (It's normal practice
to get that with other publishers).
Ok, I'm stumped. Does such a thing exist?
If not, why not here?
-- Mike Berrow
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
John Gabriele
>
> Mike Douglas wrote:
> > On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <samb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> >> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
> >
> > Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
> > PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
> > as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
> >
>
> No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would be much more useful as a
> PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
>
> I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
> format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)
>
I just ordered my copy of the dead-tree version.
Although a pdf might be nice for searching, since the cookbook is
categorized I don't think it will be much of an issue. Also, I don't
usually see pdf's with syntax highlighted code snippets, so I wouldn't
get any benefit there from the printed version. (Note to publishers:
you might sway me if the various source code listings in your digital
versions were color syntax highlighted!)
Also, since it's a cookbook, I'm guessing the snippets aren't too
long, so I don't really mind retyping the ones I need.
Besides, I prefer the quality typesetting of a real book to reading on
my flat panel.
The only (literal) pain in the neck is lugging that thing around with
all my other "essential" books. :)
---John
Rob Sanheim
I also prefer the "look and feel" of a real book over a pdf. However,
the amount of great references for ruby keeps growing, and I'm finding
the pragmatic's pdfs essential for quick searches when I don't want to
take the time to page thru a book or google it. Not to mention when
I'm out with the laptop and don't have the hard copies available.
I don't know if any O'Reilly authors read this list, but maybe this
thread should be sent on to the authors of the Cookbook or someone
else at O'Reilly. Seems they are missing what the market wants.
- Rob
--
http://www.robsanheim.com
http://www.seekingalpha.com
http://www.ajaxian.com
Leonard Richardson
> If not, why not here?
This is my fault; I've been busy with other projects and never got
around to bundling up the source code. I just sent a zipfile containing
all the code to my O'Reilly editor, and it should be up soon. In the
meantime, you can download the zipfile from the unofficial homepage:
http://www.crummy.com/writing/RubyCookbook/
I hope everyone is enjoying the Cookbook.
Leonard Richardson
http://www.crummy.com/
John Gabriele
> [snip]
>
> I don't know if any O'Reilly authors read this list, but maybe this
> thread should be sent on to the authors of the Cookbook or someone
> else at O'Reilly. Seems they are missing what the market wants.
> - Rob
I think they already know that many readers want pdf's. But they have
to balance that with knowledge that many other folks (some of them
prospective buyers of the book) will just copy and freely distribute
the pdf if one were made available. It's probably just a business
decision for them: do they make more sales by offering the
complimentary pdf, or do they lose more because people will share it
online.
Since a pdf is more of a convenience rather than a necessity for (I'm
guessing) the majority of folks interested in their books, they
probably try to stick to paper books.
Since one big benefit right now of a pdf is searchability, if I were
Oreilly, I'd focus on making their paper books easier to search by
humans (i.e.,
* even better (or perhaps multiple) indexes,
* maybe using those edge-of-page marks so you can more easily flip
quickly to the chapter you're looking for,
* easily human-scannable table of contents (and maybe even adding a
"contents at a glance" along with a more detailed TOC)).
The nutshell books seem to have more features like this. As for the
other big benefit -- portability -- I guess we're stuck there. I drag
a number of books to and fro work most days.
BTW, one of the things I like most about my books is that I can mark
them up with highlighter or pencil.
---John
Paul Battley
> Besides, I prefer the quality typesetting of a real book to reading on
> my flat panel.
I, too, am someone who far prefers a nicely typeset[1], printed book
over a PDF on the monitor - even with a nice Apple Studio Display. The
internet has led me to appreciate books as something quite distinct -
I don't expect instant access; instead, I want good editing and
coherent structure and the ability to flick through and dip in and
out. I want to open the book serendipitously to a page that teaches me
something new.
I'd be more likely to buy an (X)HTML version than a PDF, actually.
There's something really daft about reading portrait-formatted,
paginated content on a computer screen.
Paul.
1. I really don't like the typeface used in Agile Web Development With
Rails. Is it just me?
John Gabriele
> [snip]
>
> 1. I really don't like the typeface used in Agile Web Development With
> Rails. Is it just me?
>
No, it's not just you. The font is too wide. Your eyes have to zoom
uncomfortably fast back and forth across the page to read sentences at
your normal speed (i.e. not enough words per line). Maybe it's done to
make the book have more pages, dunno.
The current crop of O'reilly books seem to have the main text font
about right. Older O'reilly books had the same problem described above
though.
Now, of course, I haven't yet seen any text more beautiful than
TeX-rendered Computer Modern. Very low badness values there -- your
eyes just glide over it like a toy hovercraft on a gymnasium floor. :)
---John
Jim Morris
working on).
But I would still prefer a PDF, I don't mind buying the paper book, but if I could get a PDF with
it, I'd use the PDF 99% of the time.
Thanks
--
Jim Morris, http://blog.wolfman.com
Leslie Viljoen
> > [snip]
> >
> > I don't know if any O'Reilly authors read this list, but maybe this
> > thread should be sent on to the authors of the Cookbook or someone
> > else at O'Reilly. Seems they are missing what the market wants.
> > - Rob
>
> I think they already know that many readers want pdf's. But they have
> to balance that with knowledge that many other folks (some of them
> prospective buyers of the book) will just copy and freely distribute
> the pdf if one were made available. It's probably just a business
> decision for them: do they make more sales by offering the
> complimentary pdf, or do they lose more because people will share it
> online.
But do you know how many PAPER-ONLY books are already shared online?
They just get OCR'd. And for each one of these that is not available
in PDF, that someone illegally downloads and uses - do you think that
person will then buy the paper book?
What I mean is, convenience is king. If someone wants an electronic
copy and only paper is (legally) available, they will get the
electronic copy anyway and then NO money will go to the publisher.
Whereas if the publisher offered the electronic book in the first
place, the person wanting that might buy it.
You have to remember that in many parts of the world, paper books
incur large shipping costs, and take weeks to come. If I'm about to
start a Rails project, am I going to wait three weeks for the book?
> Since a pdf is more of a convenience rather than a necessity for (I'm
> guessing) the majority of folks interested in their books, they
> probably try to stick to paper books.
Maybe in America, where you can get any book in just about any nearby
bookstore. I have yet to see a SINGLE book about Ruby in a South
African bookstore. All my Ruby books have been bought online, and I
buy many more e-books than paper books because they come instantly and
they cost less (no shipping) and they are searchable.
> Since one big benefit right now of a pdf is searchability, if I were
> Oreilly, I'd focus on making their paper books easier to search by
> humans (i.e.,
>
> * even better (or perhaps multiple) indexes,
>
> * maybe using those edge-of-page marks so you can more easily flip
> quickly to the chapter you're looking for,
>
> * easily human-scannable table of contents (and maybe even adding a
> "contents at a glance" along with a more detailed TOC)).
>
> The nutshell books seem to have more features like this. As for the
> other big benefit -- portability -- I guess we're stuck there. I drag
> a number of books to and fro work most days.
If I need something to read on the bus where I can't take out my
laptop, I print a chapter of one of my e-books. This is where the
importance of 'printability' comes in.
> BTW, one of the things I like most about my books is that I can mark
> them up with highlighter or pencil.
<rant>
You can annotate some PDF's too. Although PDF DRM drives me mad.
Lately I buy the encumbered version (so the author and publisher get
their money) and then just find a bootleg copy without all the
restrictions. Otherwise I spend literally hours registering and
reregistering and activating and being told I can't print this or copy
that to the clipboard.
Penalising people for paying you money is the height of madness - you
see it in DVD's which force you to watch all their FBI warnings and
Ad's every time you put in the disk, you see it in the 1-hour phone
calls to Microsoft every time I reinstall Windows XP. The illegal
versions are not only easier to obtain, and free, they are more
convenient to use!
If you want to see what I am complaining about, look in my journal:
http://lesliev.livejournal.com/28216.html
</rant>
Les
Dave Thomas
On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:56 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
> No, it's not just you. The font is too wide. Your eyes have to zoom
> uncomfortably fast back and forth across the page to read sentences at
> your normal speed (i.e. not enough words per line). Maybe it's done to
> make the book have more pages, dunno.
Actually, we'd love the books to be fewer pages. However, we did a
fair amount of research on fonts, and we worked with readers early on
to see what fonts worked for them. The Bookman we use turned out to
give people the sense of being approachable while still being
readable. Everyone is different of course, and I understand what
you're saying about the width. At the same time, I get a fair number
of e-mails from folks saying they love the layouts.
Every now and then I experiment with changing the fonts around (we
recently changed the code font in all our books to make it narrower)
and I'm still open to suggestions. But approachability is still
important to me, and I wouldn't want to go with anything harsh.
Regards
Dave
Steven R.
37signals produce a book called "Getting Real" for download, watermarked
per purchaser. They have made better margins on the book than they would
have through a 'normal' publisher.
CSS can be used to format pretty much anything (within reason) in a
'custom' manner.
What would stop an author from writing a book, publishing it online with
watermarks and a EULA (or equivalent) holding purchasers responsible for
the watermarked editions of the book, and then selecting a format for
the book (font size, style, etc.) that could be used to generate a CSS
file through which the book would be printed to .pdf (for example) and
downloaded by the purchaser?
Is there a reason an author would not use such a system, were it
available? Is the retail channel so powerful, it makes such a scheme
unworkable to content creators?
There are 'civilian' versions of such, but I was thinking of 'real'
books designed for a mass audience.
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> Dave Thomas wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:56 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
>>
>>> No, it's not just you. The font is too wide. Your eyes have to zoom
>>> uncomfortably fast back and forth across the page to read sentences at
>>> your normal speed (i.e. not enough words per line). Maybe it's done to
>>> make the book have more pages, dunno.
>>
>>
>> Actually, we'd love the books to be fewer pages. However, we did a
>> fair amount of research on fonts, and we worked with readers early on
>> to see what fonts worked for them. The Bookman we use turned out to
>> give people the sense of being approachable while still being
>> readable. Everyone is different of course, and I understand what
>> you're saying about the width. At the same time, I get a fair number
>> of e-mails from folks saying they love the layouts.
>>
>> Every now and then I experiment with changing the fonts around (we
>> recently changed the code font in all our books to make it narrower)
>> and I'm still open to suggestions. But approachability is still
>> important to me, and I wouldn't want to go with anything harsh.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>> Dave
to PDF only. First of all, it's a lot less expensive that way. Second,
they're searchable. But the real reason is that I have close to a
gigabyte of PDFs (not just Pragmatic) and I can't even begin to think
how much space all of those would take up on paper.
There are a few times when I need paper -- it's really tough to read a
PDF on anything smaller than a notebook, and I ride the light rail in to
and home from work. But for the most part, I only buy paper books now
when they're only available in that format or they're "collectors items"
like my Richard Bellman collection.
Another *real* advantage to the PDF is that they can be easily updated.
The Pragmatic folks have this down to an art.
>
>
Morton Goldberg
have impaired vision, and I find Bookman much easier to read than the
more common Times Roman or Garamond.
Regards, Morton
Christian Neukirchen
> CSS can be used to format pretty much anything (within reason) in a
> custom' manner.
>
> What would stop an author from writing a book, publishing it online
> with watermarks and a EULA (or equivalent) holding purchasers
> responsible for the watermarked editions of the book, and then
> selecting a format for the book (font size, style, etc.) that could be
> used to generate a CSS file through which the book would be printed to
> .pdf (for example) and downloaded by the purchaser?
Watermarks are mostly an cosmetic feature---I've seen originally
watermarked PDFs without watermarks. In doubt, all you need is a full
version of Adobe Acrobat, but I don't know the details.
> Is there a reason an author would not use such a system, were it
> available? Is the retail channel so powerful, it makes such a scheme
> unworkable to content creators?
It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
that's different, but even less people know this.)
--
Christian Neukirchen <chneuk...@gmail.com> http://chneukirchen.org
BreadW...@fractious.net
> Although a pdf might be nice for searching, since the cookbook is
> categorized I don't think it will be much of an issue. Also, I don't
For me, it's how I'd be able to actually have the cookbook with
me when I need it. It takes up a *lot* less space in my backpack...
> Besides, I prefer the quality typesetting of a real book to reading on
> my flat panel.
I do print out the pages of small sections of books sometimes,
especially sections I use all the time (ie. reference pages).
But I don't need to haul around telephone-book sized books.
--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting
Rob Sanheim
[snip all of Les's great comments]
>
>
+1 for everything Les said.
Its obvious publishers like the Pragmatics and 37signals "get it", in
that they sell totally unrestricted PDF's. O'Reilly PDFs can be found
easily if you really want to pirate, regardless of the controls they
have on their Safari program.
Trying to lock down pdfs or other electronic versions of books is
about as futile as game publishers trying to place SafeDisc or
similiar protections on their games. All it does is frustrate legit
buyers, as the pirates crack each version within days, if not hours.
If O'Reilly had been offering a combo pack with an unrestricted PDF +
hard copy of the Cookbook, I would've bought it already instead of
hesitating due to the lack of a pdf.
John Gabriele
>
> On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:56 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
>
> > No, it's not just you. The font is too wide. Your eyes have to zoom
> > uncomfortably fast back and forth across the page to read sentences at
> > your normal speed (i.e. not enough words per line). Maybe it's done to
> > make the book have more pages, dunno.
>
> Actually, we'd love the books to be fewer pages. However, we did a
> fair amount of research on fonts, and we worked with readers early on
> to see what fonts worked for them. The Bookman we use turned out to
> give people the sense of being approachable while still being
> readable. Everyone is different of course, and I understand what
> you're saying about the width. At the same time, I get a fair number
> of e-mails from folks saying they love the layouts.
As an aside (regarding layouts), one amazing thing about the PickAxe
v2 to me is how, all over the place, there's notes that say, "see page
#n". I'm guessing this is done using some LaTeX magic. It's very
impressive and helpful. :) I lot of other books just say, "see chapter
n, section m".
Regarding Bookman, I will say that although the glyphs are rather
wide, they have nice ... um, "balance" I guess (that is, the
difference between the thickest and thinnest parts of a given glyph
isn't too large), and it's indeed a handsome font. I think David
Black's recent Ruby for Rails book suffers (IMO) from the font glyphs
being too thin in the thin places, which gives the text a kind of
uncomfortable high-contrasty look (great book, by the way).
> Every now and then I experiment with changing the fonts around (we
> recently changed the code font in all our books to make it narrower)
> and I'm still open to suggestions. But approachability is still
> important to me, and I wouldn't want to go with anything harsh.
Dave, I just grabbed a sample pdf (exerpt) chapter from your site and
had a look.
1. Whoa! The source code snippets are colorized! The graphics
(including the occasional screenshot) are in color too! And on Ubuntu
using Evince, the text is much more readable and clear than I'd
expected (I'd previously been using xpdf). I will definitely
reconsider buying your pdf versions.
2. The sans-serif font that you use interspersed with the Bookman to
indicate filenames, urls, variable names, symbols, chapter outlines,
etc. ("Avante Garde" maybe?) seems like a weird choice. It seems artsy
for artsy's-sake, and not particularly readable. Last time I saw it in
print was in the earlier editions of some Core Java books from Sun.
3. The source code font looks nice -- like Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,
which I see a lot of :) And clickable "download source" links -- *yow*
that's nice.
---John
anne001
the programs, but did not feel like copying it. I was disappointed the
cookbook did not come with code.
thank you for posting the link. I had seen the unofficial page but had
not noticed the link to the code.
Dave Thomas
On Aug 5, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Steven R. wrote:
>
> CSS can be used to format pretty much anything (within reason) in a
> 'custom' manner.
>
> What would stop an author from writing a book, publishing it online
> with watermarks and a EULA (or equivalent) holding purchasers
> responsible for the watermarked editions of the book, and then
> selecting a format for the book (font size, style, etc.) that could
> be used to generate a CSS file through which the book would be
> printed to .pdf (for example) and downloaded by the purchaser?
>
> Is there a reason an author would not use such a system, were it
> available? Is the retail channel so powerful, it makes such a
> scheme unworkable to content creators?
>
> There are 'civilian' versions of such, but I was thinking of 'real'
> books designed for a mass audience.
We've experimented with most of the XML -> PDF direct generation
systems, and with going via HTML. Our experience is that float
placement is still a major issue, which is why we don't do it.
Our online-only books (the Fridays) are formatted wildly differently
(landscape, not portrait, larger fonts, big side margin etc), but
they come from the same markup used to created the printed books. We
have the capability to produce the different formats--we just don't
get have the solid technologies.
Dave
Dave Thomas
On Aug 5, 2006, at 1:11 PM, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
> It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
> solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
> that's different, but even less people know this.)
Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
serious, serious hack... :)
One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
Dave
Dave Thomas
On Aug 5, 2006, at 3:51 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
> Dave, I just grabbed a sample pdf (exerpt) chapter from your site and
> had a look.
>
> 1. Whoa! The source code snippets are colorized! The graphics
> (including the occasional screenshot) are in color too! And on Ubuntu
> using Evince, the text is much more readable and clear than I'd
> expected (I'd previously been using xpdf). I will definitely
> reconsider buying your pdf versions.
Thanks. That was another consideration when it came to using Bookman
as the body font.
>
> 2. The sans-serif font that you use interspersed with the Bookman to
> indicate filenames, urls, variable names, symbols, chapter outlines,
> etc. ("Avante Garde" maybe?) seems like a weird choice. It seems artsy
> for artsy's-sake, and not particularly readable. Last time I saw it in
> print was in the earlier editions of some Core Java books from Sun.
Heh--you're right--good eye. It is Avant Guard. I don't love it, but
it turned out to work nicely in body text-a monospaced font is way to
wide, but the Avant Guard somehow gives the impression of being
monospaced(-ish), I think because it's fairly light. However, if you
have suggestions for a replacement I'd seriously love to hear them.
Thanks again
Dave
Dave Thomas
On Aug 5, 2006, at 8:35 PM, Dave Thomas wrote:
> Heh--you're right--good eye. It is Avant Guard.
Or even Avant Garde... :(
Daniel Martin
> 1. Whoa! The source code snippets are colorized! The graphics
> (including the occasional screenshot) are in color too! And on Ubuntu
> using Evince, the text is much more readable and clear than I'd
> expected (I'd previously been using xpdf). I will definitely
> reconsider buying your pdf versions.
One thing I don't like is that the colorizer they use seems to screw
up when coloring XML - take a look at the sample chapter from "Data
Crunching", for example. It can't handle tag names that contain
dashes, apparently.
> 3. The source code font looks nice -- like Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,
> which I see a lot of :) And clickable "download source" links -- *yow*
> that's nice.
That being said, the font is nice and readable in paper too (I've got
my "Best of Ruby Quiz" right here). Too bad the clickable source
links just don't seem to work in the paper editions...
James Edward Gray II
> Much in the tradition of Slamdance connected to the Sundance Film
> Festival,
> the not ready for prime time programming fellows ^1 announce the
> RUBY For
> The Rest Of Us Conference. RUBY ROUC
Two people have asked you nicely to spell Ruby correctly when hosting
events in its name. If you aren't going to listen to that, I guess
we know all we need to know about whether or not we should be
attending events with your name attached to them.
James Edward Gray II
Robert Evans
organize a conference that accommodates the people who won't be able
to get into RubyConf. He seems to be meeting a demand for a service
needed by the community, in a way that also happens to involve
personal time and financial risk. If it is called RUBY ROUC, it seems
to be spelled correctly, it is just upper case.
So, is that the problem and the reason that people who post about the
case of the name don't show any appreciation that he is trying to
provide something to the community? I see no big disservice being
done to anyone by the conference name having upper case.
Is it to prevent some sort of brand dilution for Ruby? If so, any
intelligent person will know that Ruby is the name of the language
despite there being a conference called RUBY ROUC. If they can't tell
the difference, then do you really want them adopting the brand? Ruby
RUBY ruby RuBy. Why get mean about it?. Unless, of course, it impacts
the way Ruby runs on your machine. If so, we should probably just
call it ruby.
I don't want a flame war over religiously held feelings, I honestly
just don't understand the reasoning for this uncharacteristically
unfriendly behavior on this particular list which is known for its
friendliness (at least in my experience.)
Have a nice day!
Bob
James Edward Gray II
> He seems to be meeting a demand for a service needed by the community,
I can't tell honestly. Sounds more like a mountain getaway that a
programming conference, but if people like that I'm glad it is an
option for them.
> I see no big disservice being done to anyone by the conference name
> having upper case.
I feel advertisements involving Ruby should spell the language name
correctly and with proper case. We don't want to confuse users
attending this conference or even just reading advertisements about
the event.
Clearly the conference organizer disagrees with me. Fine. I've said
my peace on the issue twice now and I know what I need to know about
the event.
Now, we just need to make sure new users lurking in this thread are
aware of the issue. Hopefully these posts have done that.
James Edward Gray II
James Britt
> Is it to prevent some sort of brand dilution for Ruby?
No. I believe the intention is to prevent nubies from looking dopey
when asking questions or discussing the language. Referring to the
language as "RUBY" suggests that the speaker knows very, very little
about Ruby.
And that's fine; we all started from pretty much the same place. But
I'd be skeptical of a conference organized by someone who may know next
to nothing about the conference topic, and very skeptical of a Ruby
conference run by someone who may not be all that interested in
listening to more experienced Rubyists.
Bottom line, "RUBY" is simply wrong. It is not one of many name
variations. It is not a matter of preference. It is wrong.
--
James Britt
"I can see them saying something like 'OMG Three Wizards Awesome'"
- billinboston, on reddit.com
Robert Evans
so far it looks really good ... and big. I checked some of the
recipes on things I already know and they seem proper, which just
boosts my confidence in it :-).
I like the format of the recipes. The Problem statement is really
concise, followed by a Solution section, then a Discussion of larger
issues and consequences, and sometimes a See Also section. That works
well, and in browsing so far I have found good incidental information
that way. At my stage of Ruby usage (10-11 months of full-time
development of several different projects in a commercial setting),
knowing about all the incidental cool solutions that others have
created is the next leap in productivity.
Also, in contrast to the GoF patterns format, I find this one easier
to digest. We'll see how that holds up since one of the best usages
of the GoF book was referring back to the Consequences section to
make sure that my designs using a particular pattern didn't hold any
forgotten gotchas.
Nice work on the Roman numeral recipe. That was really fun to read
because we use simple Roman numeral math as a programming interview
question.
All in all, I am looking forward to having this by my side I think it
will be very useful. Good job guys.
Bob
On Aug 2, 2006, at 4:08 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:
> Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
> haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
> buying or not.
>
> Regards, Morton
>
>
>
Robert Evans
I see your point.
Thanks for your response,
Bob
Christian Neukirchen
> On Aug 5, 2006, at 1:11 PM, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
>
>> It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
>> solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
>> that's different, but even less people know this.)
>
>
> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
> serious, serious hack... :)
I consider FO an output format here, of course you need a toolchain to
generate it.
> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
>
> Dave
Dave Thomas
On Aug 6, 2006, at 1:03 AM, Daniel Martin wrote:
>
> One thing I don't like is that the colorizer they use seems to screw
> up when coloring XML - take a look at the sample chapter from "Data
> Crunching", for example. It can't handle tag names that contain
> dashes, apparently.
Strange--it should do: I remember fixing that.
Dave Thomas
On Aug 6, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
>> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
>> serious, serious hack... :)
>
> I consider FO an output format here, of course you need a toolchain to
> generate it.
Oh
Gus S Calabrese
RUBY ROUC is not a joke It is not affiliated with Ruby either.
I will thank anyone who bothers to check the evidence before issuing
theories about an independent conference.
I love to make things humorous which is why the conference continues
for those
who have the fortitude ( i hope the number is zero ) to meditate on
ruby until Dec 31.
You have permission to spell my name AGSC agsc Augustus gustavious
salvatore Calabrese
gus Gus or you can call me Sam although I probably won't know who you
are talking to.
Check out my resume at
http://omegadogs.com/resume/gsc_resume.htm
Note that the registration has a money back guarantee.
Why would anyone trust me to not take the money and run ?
Living in Colorado for 55 years years demonstrates my basic non-
running nature.
I will ponder further on how to reassure those Gray IIs and Britts
Sundance and Slamdance are still my best example of something similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slamdance_Film_Festival
( except I am not competing with the Ruby conference, I am offering
additional possibilities )
AGSC
Keith Fahlgren
> > It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
> > solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
> > that's different, but even less people know this.)
>
> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
> serious, serious hack... :)
>
> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
complex technical books. If you'd like to see what it's capable of,
pick up a copy of Unicode Explained
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unicode) or the forthcoming PHP
Cookbook 2e (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/phpckbk2) or Rails Cookbook
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsckbk/) [the paper, _not_ the Rough
Cut version], all of which were/will be produced from XSL-FO and look
quite good.
For those interested in (a lot) more, see:
http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html.
PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
as the others have said.
HTH,
Keith
Jamal Mazrui
I wish to personally commend the accessibility of publications by the
Pragmatic Programmers site. When a book is only published in hard copy,
it is not usable to someone who does not see well enough to read print.
When a PDF edition is published but the security settings are so high
that they block assistive technology from accessing the text, the book
is also effectively unavailable to this segment of the public. If other
techniques to protect intellectual property interests while providing
electronic access are used, however, a win-win can result for authors
and customers.
In my experience, the Pragmatic Programmers publish accessible PDFs that
are custom produced with periodic insertions of text like "Prepared
exclusively for <customer name>." Although PDF manipulation to remove
such text might be possible by individuals with bad intent, this seems
to be a balanced approach, which I and others appreciate. I also like
the references to specific page numbers for more information on a topic,
since this allows me to search efficiently for that number because
skimming text is more difficult with speech output.
Regards,
Jamal
Christian Neukirchen
> On Saturday 05 August 2006 9:23 pm, Dave Thomas wrote:
>> > It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
>> > solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
>> > that's different, but even less people know this.)
>>
>> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
>> serious, serious hack... :)
>>
>> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
>
> I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
> complex technical books. If you'd like to see what it's capable of,
> pick up a copy of Unicode Explained
> (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unicode) or the forthcoming PHP
> Cookbook 2e (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/phpckbk2) or Rails Cookbook
> (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsckbk/) [the paper, _not_ the Rough
> Cut version], all of which were/will be produced from XSL-FO and look
> quite good.
Do you know which FO formatter they use?
> For those interested in (a lot) more, see:
> http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html.
>
>
> PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
> as the others have said.
Is there a CSS to FO translator?
> HTH,
> Keith
Leslie Viljoen
> are custom produced with periodic insertions of text like "Prepared
> exclusively for <customer name>." Although PDF manipulation to remove
Yes, I also appreciate the Pragmatic books' lack of restrictions, and
their great beta-book programme. Of all the e-books I have bought, I
think they do it best. Go PragProg!
Les
Keith Fahlgren
> >> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
> >> serious, serious hack... :)
> >>
> >> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
> >
> > I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
> > complex technical books.
>
We use AntennaHouse. It's commerical, but all of the others don't
implement enough of the FO spec(s) to really give you all of the tools
at your disposal.
> > PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
> > as the others have said.
>
> Is there a CSS to FO translator?
Not that I know of, but part of it shouldn't be entirely impossible. The
more tricky and page-based stuff obviously wouldn't be covered.
HTH,
Keith
Hal Fulton
> To all Ruby afficianados
>
>
> RUBY ROUC is not a joke It is not affiliated with Ruby either.
If RUBY isn't Ruby, what does it refer to? And why are you posting
about RUBY to a Ruby mailing list?
Hal
Gregory Brown
> Check out my resume at
> http://omegadogs.com/resume/gsc_resume.htm
Gus really likes to hammer I guess:
"Hammering!!!!! (H+)"
Austin Ziegler
Gus, I understand what you're wanting to do. The way that you've
approached this, however, does have some people wondering about the
ability to follow through. The language is "Ruby," as you've noted, so
the title of the conference should be:
Ruby for the Rest of Us Conference 2006
which would still leave RUBY ROUC as a semi-valid short name. I don't
fault your enthusiasm, but I think that you underestimate how much
planning goes into a successful conference, and little has been done to
counteract the slapdash feel to this. I don't know what the budget and
planning for the first Slamdance festival was, but I suspect that it was
planned a little more carefully than this appears to be planned so far.
So why don't you calm down, take a breath, and then rewrite the pages
surrounding the ROUC. Stop including unnecessary personal references and
attacks on people who are *extremely well regarded* in the Ruby
community. Attacks on them, when they've been extremely calm in pointing
out that the use of "RUBY" isn't appropriate when referring to the
language will win you no friends.
A conference can be low-budget and still be successful without appearing
slapdash. You may like having the humour, but I would plan a little more
carefully before making the grand announcements that you've made.
Otherwise, your first conference may be your last conference as well,
because people will talk about how well the conference was managed.
Badly managed conferences don't last.
Best of luck to hosting a "Rest of Us..." conference; you might even
want to look at the unconference[1] model for what you're wanting to do.
For that, though, a theatre presentation model definitely won't work. I
almost certainly guarantee that people will want Internet access during
the conference, and that people will want time and space to chat during
sessions that they're not interested in. Are you ready for that?
-austin
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
--
Austin Ziegler * halos...@gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
* aus...@halostatue.ca * http://www.halostatue.ca/feed/
* aus...@zieglers.ca
Kilivor Kante
> No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would
> be much more useful as a
> PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
>
> I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly
> seems to not like the PDF
> format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are
> doing ;)
A little OT, but just to mention that my PDF experience improved quite a
lot after switching to this tiny and free PDF reader
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php (for Windows)
Adobe Acrobat Reader is soooooo... slow?
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Tom Copeland
> On Tue, 8 Aug 2006, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
> > >> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
> > >> serious, serious hack... :)
> > >>
> > >> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
> > >
> > > I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
> > > complex technical books.
> >
> > Do you know which FO formatter they use?
>
> We use AntennaHouse. It's commerical, but all of the others don't
> implement enough of the FO spec(s) to really give you all of the tools
> at your disposal.
I've been using Altsoft's Xml2PDF. The price is reasonable, it's fast,
and it's easy to run it from the command line.
Yours,
Tom
Mike Berrow
been made available in PDF form for 1/2 price of the printed copy.
This is an excellent 906 page reference covering all aspects of Ruby
development.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rubyckbk/?CMP=ILC-H2K675675382&ATT=rubyckbk
I already had the paper book, but I just purchased and downloaded the
PDF too.
I really like having the combination. Paper for the easy chair, PDF on
my laptop for weightless reference while I'm working at the coffee shop.
-- Mike Berrow