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Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

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Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#91

Post by robomc »

nicebyte wrote: post #34

this is legitimately the worst programming book i've ever read. i wanted to get started with ruby back in 2009, and everyone was praising this book. i got it, read the first few chapters, and got bored out of my mind. it meanders and takes forever to get to the point. in the end, i never really learned ruby, and the main cause was this book.

yeah if you're actually 100% new to code, this book is pretty terrible, at least for the way I learn. if you're already familiar with the common programming concepts, then this book is probably more applicable, but still hugely inefficient.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#92

Post by robomc »

robomc wrote: post #91
nicebyte wrote: post #34

this is legitimately the worst programming book i've ever read. i wanted to get started with ruby back in 2009, and everyone was praising this book. i got it, read the first few chapters, and got bored out of my mind. it meanders and takes forever to get to the point. in the end, i never really learned ruby, and the main cause was this book.

yeah if you're actually 100% new to code, this book is pretty terrible, at least for the way I learn. if you're already familiar with the common programming concepts, then this book is probably more applicable, but still hugely inefficient.

i like it as a thing that exists, but I got started programming via self-taught ruby, and the _why guide had almost nothing to do with that, despite wanting to like it.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#93

Post by djur »

phaedryx wrote: post #20
crtc wrote: post #13

Why do Rubyists like this convoluted and almost childish communication style?

Honestly, I would not recommend this book to somebody who wanted to learn Ruby. I wouldn't recommend this to somebody who had a serious project or task to solve. However, I love that this added flavor to the Ruby community. For years afterwards people would hide Easter eggs like "chunky bacon" in their conference slides. It was a fun inside joke to share with fellow Rubyists. I mean, Python has references to Monty Py…

_why was not writing for an audience of people who wanted to learn a programming language to get a job to make money. There are certainly people who did get that out of The (Poignant) Guide, but it wasn't the primary goal. The primary goal, as I understood it, was to share a way to find joy in a particular way that humans can interact with computers.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#94

Post by Dylan16807 »

foolfoolz wrote: post #39
valbaca wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This about sums up most Monty Python and Rick & Morty references as well. A lot of nerd/hacker culture falls into this kind of recognition of unique humor and wit, then squeezing every little drop of joy out of it until it's as empty as a Garfield cartoon.

this complaint is effectively “repost!!!”

...you say on a repost.

No, the problem isn't "reposting".

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#95

Post by sp332 »

mwcremer wrote: post #40
valbaca wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This about sums up most Monty Python and Rick & Morty references as well. A lot of nerd/hacker culture falls into this kind of recognition of unique humor and wit, then squeezing every little drop of joy out of it until it's as empty as a Garfield cartoon.

Au contraire: https://garfieldminusgarfield.net (Although I suppose a case could be made for it still being "empty.")

And https://3eanuts.com/ which just removes the last panel from Peanuts strips, making them horribly gloomy.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#97

Post by dialamac »

cambalache wrote: post #68
leetrout wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a pretentiousness held in a group of language zealots. You don’t hear the same about Nim, for example(yet?), In my experience. I don’t deny Ruby’s impact on the industry I just have a hard time with the attitudes prevalent in the devs I’ve worked with... it is strikingly stereotypical.

Complains about the "pretentiousness" of Ruby developers (Out all the languages!). Proceeds to mention Nim. Rub his mustache, drink his kombucha a put another vinyl.

I don’t see your point. A large base of Nim users are looking for a pragmatic alternative to the C/C++ family without the aggressive anti-modernism of Go. Nim is certainly not the only player in this realm, but far as I know there isn’t a “Nim Drama” Twitter or tumblr. The drama queen stereotype of Ruby and Rails is very well earned on a repeated basis. All the communities have had their dramas but Ruby and Rust to a lesser extent seem to attract it a lot more as a pattern.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#98

Post by treeman79 »

uncomputation wrote: post #71
leetrout wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a pretentiousness held in a group of language zealots. You don’t hear the same about Nim, for example(yet?), In my experience. I don’t deny Ruby’s impact on the industry I just have a hard time with the attitudes prevalent in the devs I’ve worked with... it is strikingly stereotypical.

> It really is a pretentiousness held in a group of language zealots. Can’t tell if this is ironic or not, but Rubyists are pretty well known as the friendliest out of all language communities, and have been for over a decade now

We had the rock star solo developer phase.

Thankfully we grew out of it.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#99

Post by treeman79 »

cutler wrote: post #56
ppod wrote: post #32

Aside from the book, this brings back all those fuzzy feelings of learning ruby. Boolean functions end in ?, in-place transformations end in ! each, unless. It's just such a beautiful language.

Yes. In a perfect world Ruby would have left Python in the dust and enterprise software would be written in Clojure.

I left python for ruby A dozen years ago.

I always missed the simplicity of Python.

Ruby community was just awesome. Pushing at the bleeding edge of getting stuff done fast, if a bit magical.

Been debating about going back. Cleaning up 8 year old magical ruby apps is getting old.

Re: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (2004)

#100

Post by treeman79 »

tartoran wrote: post #51

Ruby is an appealing language for sure , but is it worth learning it in 2020, with the intention of getting paid for one’s work? It is an honest question and in no way am i trashing the language. Just curious what others have to say about it

Pay is excellent. 120k is east anywhere in the country. 150-170k is harder to find, but not uncommon.

Ruby itself is great but it’s everything around it that makes it so productive.

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