Get to the Point: Ruby and Rails Presentation Slides

John W. Long

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Sep 14, 2005, 11:58:12 PM9/14/05

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Hi,

Ryan Platte and I just did a presentation to the Chicago ACM about Ruby
this evening. Our slides are available for others to use here:

http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/

Comments and suggestions are welcome. We would like to present this
again in the future, so it would be good to clarify things a little.

Please note: slides are best if viewed in Firefox or Safari.

--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com

Derek O'Connell

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Sep 15, 2005, 3:12:37 AM9/15/05

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Great presentation, thanks John.

Devin Mullins

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Sep 15, 2005, 7:34:48 AM9/15/05

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Cool! My browser's sorta, uh, frozen right now (that's what happens when
you have ~200 tabs open), so I can't look at it, but you might consider
sticking a link to it on the Why Ruby? page
(www.rubygarden/ruby?WhyRuby, I believe).

Devin

Josh Charles

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Sep 15, 2005, 9:45:42 AM9/15/05

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On 9/14/05, John W. Long <n...@johnwlong.com> wrote:
> Comments and suggestions are welcome. We would like to present this
> again in the future, so it would be good to clarify things a little.

Excellent Presentation. The only thing I didn't quite understand was
the "method_missing" stuff. I haven't encountered that before; could
you add to that a little bit?

Josh

Bil Kleb

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Sep 15, 2005, 10:29:43 AM9/15/05

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John W. Long wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Ryan Platte and I just did a presentation to the Chicago ACM about Ruby
> this evening. Our slides are available for others to use here:
>
> http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/
>
> Comments and suggestions are welcome.

From Tufte's "The Smallest Effective Difference"
chapter in /Visual Explanations/, I would tone
down the syntax highlighting contrasts by an
order of magnitude.

Otherwise, quite refreshing. Thanks for sharing.

What's the wget or curl command to grab the
lot so I can stick it on a disc to give to
some newbies?

Thanks,
--
Bil
http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov

Curt Hibbs

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Sep 15, 2005, 11:19:32 AM9/15/05

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Ruby uses the same model of method invocation as Smalltalk. Conceptually,
you send a "message" to an object. The message has a name and a set of
parameters. Ruby attempts to find a method definition that matches the
signature of the message in the target object's class and each of its
superclasses.

If no matching method is found, Ruby sends a "method_missing" message to the
object instead (including the original message as a parameter). Most objects
don't implement method_missing and the implementation in Ruby's root object
is invoked (which output the standard error message).

If the object does implement method_missing, then it gets control and can do
whatever it wants with the original message. In the case of this example, it
forwards the original message to the object it is proxying.

This is a powerful feature when you are building reusable frameworks. Rails
uses this to provide "virtual" implementations of its find_* methods.
FreeRIDE uses this to implement attributes on its Databus nodes.

Hope that helped.

Curt

Emiel van de Laar

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Sep 15, 2005, 3:00:50 PM9/15/05

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This worked for me:

%wget -r http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/

Had to get the images manually though because wget doesn't know anything
about CSS.

/images/background.gif
/images/code-bottom-right.gif
/images/code-top-left.gif
/images/prev.gif
/images/next.gif
/images/stripe.png

Perhaps John could provide a tar or zip. :)

Emiel
--
Emiel van de Laar

John W. Long

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Sep 15, 2005, 10:39:28 PM9/15/05

to

Bil Kleb wrote:
> From Tufte's "The Smallest Effective Difference"
> chapter in /Visual Explanations/, I would tone
> down the syntax highlighting contrasts by an
> order of magnitude.

I've never read this book. Can you explain the reasoning behind what you
suggest in a little more detail?

> Otherwise, quite refreshing. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks!

> What's the wget or curl command to grab the
> lot so I can stick it on a disc to give to
> some newbies?

It should be available in the Why Ruby project documentation in a little
bit. I'm waiting on Curt Hibbs to approve it:

http://rubyforge.org/docman/?group_id=251

John W. Long

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Sep 15, 2005, 11:02:42 PM9/15/05

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John W. Long wrote:
> It should be available in the Why Ruby project documentation in a little
> bit. I'm waiting on Curt Hibbs to approve it:
>
> http://rubyforge.org/docman/?group_id=251

It's approved:

http://rubyforge.org/docman/view.php/251/192/get-to-the-point.zip

--
John

Bil Kleb

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Sep 16, 2005, 6:28:27 AM9/16/05

to

John W. Long wrote:
> Bil Kleb wrote:
>
>> From Tufte's "The Smallest Effective Difference"
>> chapter in /Visual Explanations/, I would tone
>> down the syntax highlighting contrasts by an
>> order of magnitude.
>
> I've never read this book.

If you're in the U.S., I highly recommend making every
effort to get yourself to one of Tufte's short courses,

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses

(You'll get a copy of his books as part of the course
fee.)

> Can you explain the reasoning behind what you
> suggest in a little more detail?

Many some quotations from that chapter, will help?

Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible,
but still clear and effective.

/small/ differences allow /more/ differences

In designing information, then, the idea is to use
/just notable differences/, visual elements that
make a clear difference but no more -- contrasts
that are definite, effective, /and/ minimal.

when /everything/ is emphasized, /nothing/ is
emphasized; the design will often be noisy,
cluttered, and informationally flat.

Regards,
--
Bil
http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov

Curt Hibbs

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Sep 16, 2005, 7:13:23 AM9/16/05

to

On 9/16/05, Bil Kleb <Bil....@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> In designing information, then, the idea is to use
> /just notable differences/, visual elements that
> make a clear difference but no more -- contrasts
> that are definite, effective, /and/ minimal.
>
> when /everything/ is emphasized, /nothing/ is
> emphasized; the design will often be noisy,
> cluttered, and informationally flat.

Hmmm... reminds me of when I find a chapter of a book so interested that I
use my highlighter on 80% of it and then find my highlighting to be totally
useless! :-)

Curt

John W. Long

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Sep 16, 2005, 7:14:43 AM9/16/05

to

Bil Kleb wrote:
> John W. Long wrote:
>> Bil Kleb wrote:
>>> From Tufte's "The Smallest Effective Difference"
>>> chapter in /Visual Explanations/, I would tone
>>> down the syntax highlighting contrasts by an
>>> order of magnitude.
>>
>> I've never read this book.
>
> If you're in the U.S., I highly recommend making every
> effort to get yourself to one of Tufte's short courses,
>
> http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
>
> (You'll get a copy of his books as part of the course
> fee.)
>
> > Can you explain the reasoning behind what you
> > suggest in a little more detail?
>
> Many some quotations from that chapter, will help?

Very interesting. Thanks.

--
John

Hugh Sasse

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Sep 16, 2005, 7:19:33 AM9/16/05

to

On Fri, 16 Sep 2005, Bil Kleb wrote:

> John W. Long wrote:
>> Bil Kleb wrote:
>>
>>> From Tufte's "The Smallest Effective Difference"
>>> chapter in /Visual Explanations/, I would tone

[...]

> http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses
>
> (You'll get a copy of his books as part of the course
> fee.)
>
>> Can you explain the reasoning behind what you
>> suggest in a little more detail?
>
> Many some quotations from that chapter, will help?
>
> Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible,
> but still clear and effective.
>
> /small/ differences allow /more/ differences
>
> In designing information, then, the idea is to use
> /just notable differences/, visual elements that
> make a clear difference but no more -- contrasts
> that are definite, effective, /and/ minimal.

Yes, but remember that not everyone has perfect eyesight!!!
Your values for /just not[ic]able differences/ should probably
be a few dB's up if you have. And some people are colour blind.

>
> when /everything/ is emphasized, /nothing/ is
> emphasized; the design will often be noisy,
> cluttered, and informationally flat.

This is certainly true. [Caveat lector: I've not looked at the
slides for this presentation yet, so am not criticising those at
all. These are general remarks.]

>
> Regards,
> --
> Bil
> http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov
>

Hugh
>

Bil Kleb

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Sep 16, 2005, 8:08:03 AM9/16/05

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Curt Hibbs wrote:
>
> Hmmm... reminds me of when I find a chapter of a book so interest[ing] that I

> use my highlighter on 80% of it and then find my highlighting to be totally
> useless! :-)

Once upon a time, I read a recommendation to
highlightstuff with which you do not agree or
understand and *not* the stuff you with which
you agree.

Later,
--
Bil
http://fun3d.larc.nasa.gov

Han Holl

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Sep 16, 2005, 8:24:48 AM9/16/05

to

> On slide 2, it would be clearer to do:
# Output "Ruby Rocks!
Ruby Rocks!
Ruby Rocks!
Ruby Rocks!
Ruby Rocks!
"
but it's a bit awkward as a comment.

Han

Brian Schröder

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Sep 19, 2005, 6:29:15 AM9/19/05

to

For my taste too many words in this passage are highlighted. If it is
really a one to one quotation from the book including emphasis, I
think he may not have understood how to depict information clearly and
not burry it under emphasis noise ;-)

regards,

Brian

--
http://ruby.brian-schroeder.de/

Stringed instrument chords: http://chordlist.brian-schroeder.de/

Bil Kleb

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Sep 19, 2005, 6:53:27 AM9/19/05

to

Brian Schröder wrote:
>>>Bil Kleb wrote:
>>
>>Ma[ybe] some quotations from that chapter, will help?

>>
>> Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible,
>> but still clear and effective.
>>
>> /small/ differences allow /more/ differences
>>
>> In designing information, then, the idea is to use
>> /just notable differences/, visual elements that
>> make a clear difference but no more -- contrasts
>> that are definite, effective, /and/ minimal.
>>
>> when /everything/ is emphasized, /nothing/ is
>> emphasized; the design will often be noisy,
>> cluttered, and informationally flat.
>
> For my taste too many words in this passage are highlighted.

Agreed, but these are just the key sentences out of
a 6-page chapter (which were easy to identify because
of their emphasis). ;)

My apologies for not making that clear.

Zach Dennis

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Oct 6, 2005, 12:38:15 PM10/6/05

to

Thanks for posting this John. I am going to go over later today. I have
one question thus far....Are you allowing public use of the look in your
slides for other ruby presentations?

Zach

Zach Dennis

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Oct 6, 2005, 12:39:23 PM10/6/05

to

I just realized that this was posted about a month ago. I do not know
how it just now showed up in my inbox. =)

Zach

John W. Long

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Oct 6, 2005, 7:56:56 PM10/6/05

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It's fine with me if you use the HTML and images in your own Ruby
presentations. Right now I will retain rights on the look, images, and
design.

--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com

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