I think it's rubbish. Probably just fine for a complete novice into program design, but utter rubbish to learn anything substantial from.
The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
21–29 of 29 posts
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#22Frankly, I do not think very highly of _why's writing style. I find the book to be very difficult to read. If you want an example of excellent technical writing, consider Paul Graham's 'On Lisp' or 'ANSI Common Lisp'.
Indeed, Graham's prose is very clear and simple to incorporate.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poignant is fun . That's all. Probably the best book for really learning Ruby is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. Hal clearly gets Ruby. The book is thorough (although possibly a little out of date now), introduces a lot of idiomatic Ruby, and has just the right amount of geeky inside jokes.
There is a second edition of The Ruby Way released last year(2008).
Yes, I meant mainly that it doesn't cover Ruby 1.9 or some newer libraries. While the Ruby landscape has changed a little since it came out, The Ruby Way still covers the core language and many still relevant libraries quite well.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#24Unusual? Certainly. Best? Not for me. I had some time this past summer and decided that I wanted to experiment a bit with Ruby. I tried Poignant three or four times, and each time I would put it down after half an hour, with the same thought - "Why is this book, widely regarded as the One True Way to learn Ruby, fucking around so much? I don't want foxes and cartoons, I want syntax, rules, conventions, and informatio…
> You know what the "best" language book I've read is? K&R
I also loved K&R. I like concise and precise books about languages. For me the fun part is the ability to make you "feel" the language by practice. I like when I can do something, and do it in a new way in a project of my own.
Recently, the best language learning book I read was "Real World Haskell".
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#25Wow: a lot of people really have some dislike for this book. Not surprising, since Hacker News emphasizes the code-obsessed mind.
I'm not somebody who lives in the world of programming, and this is the only guide to coding that I've ever read and learned from. _why phrases things in ways that make their concepts easy to grasp and he makes for a compelling read. People who insult that or call it drugged-up miss that he's not writing a technical guide. He's writing a poignant guide, and that means that the larger goal is getting people really emotionally invested in the language. You learn the bare minimum to the language, which is enough so that then you can go on and find technical manuals, understanding enough to not be instantly turned away.
I hate tech manuals. I use a few reference books, but I can't pick up a "Guide To X Language" and get very much from it. A guide that makes coding fun is exactly what I need.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all due respect, if you had such trouble with Poignant , the you probably also would have had a hard time with Ruby. Not to imply that you couldn't understand Ruby or write in Ruby, but just that Ruby has a very distinct character, a personality almost, and I suspect you and Ruby would not have gotten along. For me, it's that way with Python. Honestly, Python is not fundamentally different from Ruby except this:…
Claims like this bother me, whether about Ruby or Python. a programming language is simply that -- a language used to program computers. It doesn't have a personality. It has a distinct syntax, methods, etc. It is the community which gives it a personality, if any.
Distinct syntax creates a personality, similar to how haikus read differently from sestinas. The form is the function is the attitude is the personality. They're one and the same.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#27Frankly, I do not think very highly of _why's writing style. I find the book to be very difficult to read. If you want an example of excellent technical writing, consider Paul Graham's 'On Lisp' or 'ANSI Common Lisp'.
_why isn't writing a technical book, though. He's writing a fun book that introduces people to a coding language.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#28Wow: a lot of people really have some dislike for this book. Not surprising, since Hacker News emphasizes the code-obsessed mind. I'm not somebody who lives in the world of programming, and this is the only guide to coding that I've ever read and learned from. _why phrases things in ways that make their concepts easy to grasp and he makes for a compelling read. People who insult that or call it drugged-up miss that h…
I recommend why's guide to every non-techie I know who wants to jump into programming.
I had an HR friend of mine trying to make sense out of some data, and wanted to contract me to write a really simple script to make some sense out of his flat file data.
I didn't have time, and since he wasn't an idiot, I figured he could take it on himself, and gave him a link to the poignant guide, which he claims worked like a charm.
Now he's making me justify my salary to him.
For people who already know programming concepts, and just need to know syntax and what's different about Ruby from what they already know, I think the poignant guide is the long way there.
For this crowd, I understand the bitter reception.
Re: The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Claims like this bother me, whether about Ruby or Python. a programming language is simply that -- a language used to program computers. It doesn't have a personality. It has a distinct syntax, methods, etc. It is the community which gives it a personality, if any.
Matz would disagree with you: "I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don't want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers. I tried to make people enjoy programming and concentrate on the fun and creative part of programming when they use Ruby." http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.ht...
Honestly, I don't even agree with me. That comment came out wrong. What I meant to say was that I feel it is obtuse to say something like "you will probably have a hard time with Ruby if you have a hard time with this goofy book."