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Pickaxe

Dark Ambient

7/7/2006 8:24:00 PM

I've been reading the pickaxe book the last few days. As a newbie to
both Ruby and programming I have to say it's packed with an incredible
amount of information. I'm still in part 1 and just going through the
section on Regular Expressions. I find this section in particular to
be quite a challenge.

Two questions then:
Is the book more of a reference, read through and always come back too ?
Is is a good idea to have a project started at some point , perhaps
after the first section ?

TIA
Stuart
5 Answers

Robert Klemme

7/7/2006 8:38:00 PM

0

2006/7/7, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com>:
> I've been reading the pickaxe book the last few days. As a newbie to
> both Ruby and programming I have to say it's packed with an incredible
> amount of information. I'm still in part 1 and just going through the
> section on Regular Expressions. I find this section in particular to
> be quite a challenge.
>
> Two questions then:
> Is the book more of a reference, read through and always come back too ?
> Is is a good idea to have a project started at some point , perhaps
> after the first section ?

Yeah, your intuition is probably right. It's not exactly an
introduction to programming in general - although those can also be
found on the web ("learning to program" etc.). And I definitively use
it as reference quite often.

Cheers

robert

--
Have a look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fu...

Dark Ambient

7/7/2006 8:50:00 PM

0

Weren't you a contributor ?

Stuart

On 7/7/06, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2006/7/7, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com>:
> > I've been reading the pickaxe book the last few days. As a newbie to
> > both Ruby and programming I have to say it's packed with an incredible
> > amount of information. I'm still in part 1 and just going through the
> > section on Regular Expressions. I find this section in particular to
> > be quite a challenge.
> >
> > Two questions then:
> > Is the book more of a reference, read through and always come back too ?
> > Is is a good idea to have a project started at some point , perhaps
> > after the first section ?
>
> Yeah, your intuition is probably right. It's not exactly an
> introduction to programming in general - although those can also be
> found on the web ("learning to program" etc.). And I definitively use
> it as reference quite often.
>
> Cheers
>
> robert
>
> --
> Have a look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fu...
>
>

Robert Klemme

7/8/2006 10:27:00 AM

0

Dark Ambient wrote:
> Weren't you a contributor ?

Yes, I proofread the multithreading section and I think I also provided
some input on the code samples.

robert

Dark Ambient

7/8/2006 9:25:00 PM

0

Thanks James, I have Learn to Program and have been using it but
thought I'd diversify a bit in between those incredibly difficult
programming challenges in Chris Pine's book. For me Learning to
Program is a great book primarily because of the exercises. I wish
more books had assignments in them. I came to Ruby after checking out
Rails at first and wish that a book like Agile Web Development had
some exercises to allow newbs to get their feet wet. I've always
found the "tutorial/working through building an application" approach
to be limited in some ways, just my personal taste I guess.

Stuart

Stuart

On 7/8/06, James Herdman <james.herdman@gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a good book by the same company, and available online, called "Learn
> to Program". Perhaps you might want to skim through it before you dive into
> the Pickaxe book? You can find "Learn to Program" here >>
> http://pine.fm/Learn...
>
> I hope this helps a little.
>
> James H
>
> On 7/7/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've been reading the pickaxe book the last few days. As a newbie to
> > both Ruby and programming I have to say it's packed with an incredible
> > amount of information. I'm still in part 1 and just going through the
> > section on Regular Expressions. I find this section in particular to
> > be quite a challenge.
> >
> > Two questions then:
> > Is the book more of a reference, read through and always come back too ?
> > Is is a good idea to have a project started at some point , perhaps
> > after the first section ?
> >
> > TIA
> > Stuart
> >
> >
>
>

Chris Pine

7/10/2006 10:34:00 AM

0

On 7/8/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> For me Learning to Program is a great book primarily because of the exercises.

Thanks!

> I wish more books had assignments in them.

Well, it took me a really long time to come up with challenging (but
hopefully not *too* hard) exercises that weren't totally boring. I
bet I spent at least half of the time just coming up with exercises,
trying them, throwing them out...

Maybe I'm just a better programmer than I am a creative thinker, but I
found coming up with the exercises much harder than solving them (or
even writing the rest of the book).

Chris