Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#21

Post by marizmelo » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

up_and_up wrote: post #11

pat_shaughnessy wrote: post #2

Thanks for posting this :) ...I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has.

You should move the purchase button higher on the page or put multiple buttons. My immediate assumption was it was not ready yet until I scrooooled way down to find the purchase link.

+1 for this, I thought the comments were actual comments about the book. Usually comments are placed on the bottom of the page.

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#22

Post by JulianWasTaken » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #18

Who828 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey pat, how do you understand the internal code so well ? I read your free chapter on Ruby's Hash table and I loved every bit of it. It would be great if you can share the process you go through when you read the source code, so maybe I can apply it in the future. By the way, congrats for the release !

The code for MRI is.. idiomatic, but actually pretty easy to read. I last did C full time in the 90s and so am mostly just a 'reader' now but it's not hard to follow, although some of the reasoning behind doing things a certain way in MRI is unfathomable.. ;-)

I don't understand the wording of your first sentence. Did you mean "idiotic" or?

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#23

Post by pat_shaughnessy » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #18

Who828 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey pat, how do you understand the internal code so well ? I read your free chapter on Ruby's Hash table and I loved every bit of it. It would be great if you can share the process you go through when you read the source code, so maybe I can apply it in the future. By the way, congrats for the release !

The code for MRI is.. idiomatic, but actually pretty easy to read. I last did C full time in the 90s and so am mostly just a 'reader' now but it's not hard to follow, although some of the reasoning behind doing things a certain way in MRI is unfathomable.. ;-)

Exactly, Peter. It's not tremendously hard to read the C code and understand what it is doing (usually), if you're familiar with C syntax. But it was tremendously difficult at times understanding _why_ it was doing what it was doing.

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#24

Post by pat_shaughnessy » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

marizmelo wrote: post #16

why not make available on Amazon as kindle version? I always think twice before share my card info on random websites.

FYI My download kit includes a mobi file, and it looks acceptable on the kindle. But yes, in black and white you'll lose a lot of the value of the diagrams I drew.

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#25

Post by pat_shaughnessy » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #19

elliotlai wrote: post #13

"Ruby Under a Microscope" I was expecting some beautiful images ... nevermind, my bad

Enjoy this one: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/birthstones/pages/ruby.html

Nice! I think I have my design concept for RUAM part 2! :)

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#26

Post by randomdata » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

Willy_nourson wrote: post #7

Ah weird, I always assumed "modern" programming languages were bootstrapped (for all the advantages that it implies), didn't know it's not the case for Ruby. Good to know.

I guess that depends on what you consider Ruby. MRI isn't, but Rubinius is.

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#27

Post by JonnieCache » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 7:57 PM UTC

JulianWasTaken wrote: post #22

petercooper wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code for MRI is.. idiomatic, but actually pretty easy to read. I last did C full time in the 90s and so am mostly just a 'reader' now but it's not hard to follow, although some of the reasoning behind doing things a certain way in MRI is unfathomable.. ;-)

I don't understand the wording of your first sentence. Did you mean "idiotic" or?

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=define%3Aidiom

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#28

Post by IheartApplesDix » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:06 PM UTC

pat_shaughnessy wrote: post #2

Thanks for posting this :) ...I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has.

What is the purpose of this book? Is Ruby internal workings not widely known or understood, or is this more about how to reverse engineer a software stack? Did you discover anything that is not documented in Ruby docs?

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#29

Post by IheartApplesDix » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

marizmelo wrote: post #16

why not make available on Amazon as kindle version? I always think twice before share my card info on random websites.

I would also like to see a version I can purchase through my Kindle as well.

Re: Ruby Under a Microscope: Learning Ruby Internals through Experiment

#30

Post by pat_shaughnessy » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 8:29 PM UTC

IheartApplesDix wrote: post #28

pat_shaughnessy wrote: post #2

Thanks for posting this :) ...I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has.

What is the purpose of this book? Is Ruby internal workings not widely known or understood, or is this more about how to reverse engineer a software stack? Did you discover anything that is not documented in Ruby docs?

Yes - Ruby's internal workings are very mysterious to most people. While the C source code behind Ruby is open source, it's hard to read and understand for most people. In Ruby Under a Microscope, I explain how Ruby works internally… without assuming you know anything about C programming.

Why study Ruby internals in the first place? Here are my reasons (from the book's preface): - By studying how Ruby works internally, you'll get a deeper understanding of the language and become a better Ruby developer. - You can learn a lot from the Ruby core team. There is some amazing stuff inside of Ruby, and Ruby's implementation might help you while solving your own coding problems. - It's fun! It's just super-fascinating stuff!

I learned a lot of stuff about Ruby usage that is not documented. You can read more in the book… :)

Thanks for your interest, and for asking!