Asp Forum - Ruby Cookbook - comp.lang.ruby

Morton Goldberg

8/2/2006 11:09:00 AM

Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
buying or not.

Regards, Morton

49 Answers

James Gray

8/2/2006 1:26:00 PM

On Aug 2, 2006, at 6:08 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:

> Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
> haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
> buying or not.

Keep in mind it did *just* come out (I got mine in the mail
yesterday) and it's over 900 pages. You'll probably need to wait a
bit for full reviews.

Just glancing through it though I'm pretty jazzed up about reading
it. There is a metric ton of content in there and it looks to cover
just about everything to some degree. I could see it being a very
helpful tool for most people, since your area of interest likely
receives at least some coverage.

Also, the lost dinosaur example had me laughing out loud! ;)

Fair warning: I wrote six of the recipes in that book, so my
opinions are probably biased. I also have done very little real
reading yet. Buyer beware.

James Edward Gray II

David Pollak

8/2/2006 1:33:00 PM

I love it. It's very useful, helpful, accessible, and well organized.

It's one of the 4 books I've got open when I'm doing Ruby/Rails coding
(the others are Pickaxe, Rails/Agile, and Ruby for Rails.)

On 8/2/06, Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@ameritech.net> wrote:
> Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
> haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
> buying or not.
>
> Regards, Morton
>
>
>
>

--
--------
David Pollak's Ruby Playground
http://d...

Dark Ambient

8/2/2006 1:34:00 PM

I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.

Stuart

On 8/2/06, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
> On Aug 2, 2006, at 6:08 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:
>
> > Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
> > haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
> > buying or not.
>
> Keep in mind it did *just* come out (I got mine in the mail
> yesterday) and it's over 900 pages. You'll probably need to wait a
> bit for full reviews.
>
> Just glancing through it though I'm pretty jazzed up about reading
> it. There is a metric ton of content in there and it looks to cover
> just about everything to some degree. I could see it being a very
> helpful tool for most people, since your area of interest likely
> receives at least some coverage.
>
> Also, the lost dinosaur example had me laughing out loud! ;)
>
> Fair warning: I wrote six of the recipes in that book, so my
> opinions are probably biased. I also have done very little real
> reading yet. Buyer beware.
>
> James Edward Gray II
>
>
>

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

8/3/2006 1:59:00 AM

Morton Goldberg wrote:
> Anyone care to post their first impressions on Ruby Cookbook? I
> haven't seen it yet. I'd like hear what others think of it before
> buying or not.
>
> Regards, Morton
I found the recipe for roast duck quite good. :)

Mike Douglas

8/3/2006 4:08:00 AM

On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.

Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.

--
Mike

Jim Morris

8/4/2006 7:39:00 AM

No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would be much more useful as a
PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)

I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)

Mike Douglas wrote:
> On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
>> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
>
> Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
> PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
> as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
>

--
Jim Morris, http://blog.w...

James Mead

8/4/2006 8:35:00 AM

I just had a bad experience with "buying" this book through the Safari
Rough Cuts program. I assumed I would be entitled to download the PDF
during development and after publication, but it turns out I was only
entitled to download it during development. There were also problems
with random numbers embedded in the text of the table of contents when
I did download it. I've now got my money back from Safari and am still
trying to understand exactly what I should have got.

I agree O'Reilly seems not to have worked out how to compete with the
Pragmatic Programmers. I've purchased numerous eBooks and beta books
from them with no problems at all.

James
http://blog.floe...

On 04/08/06, Jim Morris <ml@e4net.com> wrote:
> No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would be much more useful as a
> PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
>
> I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
> format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)
>
>
> Mike Douglas wrote:
> > On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> >> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
> >
> > Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
> > PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
> > as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
> >
>
> --
> Jim Morris, http://blog.w...
>
>

Mike Berrow

8/4/2006 3:27:00 PM

I've just received my paper copy. It looks very good.

As I hate transcribing code fragments, I looked at the
Safari site for a zip of the code (It's normal practice
to get that with other publishers).

Ok, I'm stumped. Does such a thing exist?
If not, why not here?

-- Mike Berrow

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

jmg3000

8/4/2006 4:52:00 PM

On 8/4/06, Jim Morris <ml@e4net.com> wrote:
>
> Mike Douglas wrote:
> > On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> >> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
> >
> > Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
> > PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
> > as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
> >
>
> No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would be much more useful as a
> PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
>
> I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
> format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)
>

I just ordered my copy of the dead-tree version.

Although a pdf might be nice for searching, since the cookbook is
categorized I don't think it will be much of an issue. Also, I don't
usually see pdf's with syntax highlighted code snippets, so I wouldn't
get any benefit there from the printed version. (Note to publishers:
you might sway me if the various source code listings in your digital
versions were color syntax highlighted!)

Also, since it's a cookbook, I'm guessing the snippets aren't too
long, so I don't really mind retyping the ones I need.

Besides, I prefer the quality typesetting of a real book to reading on
my flat panel.

The only (literal) pain in the neck is lugging that thing around with
all my other "essential" books. :)

---John

Rob Sanheim

8/4/2006 6:46:00 PM

On 8/4/06, John Gabriele <jmg3000@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/4/06, Jim Morris <ml@e4net.com> wrote:
> >
> > Mike Douglas wrote:
> > > On 8/2/06, Dark Ambient <sambient@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> I think it would be a nice option if they offered this book as a PDF.
> > >> Safari at $20 a month just for one book is not a good pitch.
> > >
> > > Those who bought the book through Safari's Rough Cuts program get a
> > > PDF of the book. I checked a few days ago and they still had it listed
> > > as "rough cuts", so you might see be able to buy it.
> > >
> >
> > No its not available anymore as a rough cut, and I agree this book would be much more useful as a
> > PDF than a paper book IMHO. (Especially those of us with dual monitors!)
> >
> > I'll wait for a PDF book from another publisher I think, as O'Reilly seems to not like the PDF
> > format, maybe they should look at how well the pragmatic programmers are doing ;)
> >
>
> I just ordered my copy of the dead-tree version.
>
> Although a pdf might be nice for searching, since the cookbook is
> categorized I don't think it will be much of an issue. Also, I don't
> usually see pdf's with syntax highlighted code snippets, so I wouldn't
> get any benefit there from the printed version. (Note to publishers:
> you might sway me if the various source code listings in your digital
> versions were color syntax highlighted!)
>
> Also, since it's a cookbook, I'm guessing the snippets aren't too
> long, so I don't really mind retyping the ones I need.
>
> Besides, I prefer the quality typesetting of a real book to reading on
> my flat panel.
>
> The only (literal) pain in the neck is lugging that thing around with
> all my other "essential" books. :
> ---John

I also prefer the "look and feel" of a real book over a pdf. However,
the amount of great references for ruby keeps growing, and I'm finding
the pragmatic's pdfs essential for quick searches when I don't want to
take the time to page thru a book or google it. Not to mention when
I'm out with the laptop and don't have the hard copies available.

I don't know if any O'Reilly authors read this list, but maybe this
thread should be sent on to the authors of the Cookbook or someone
else at O'Reilly. Seems they are missing what the market wants.
- Rob
--
http://www.robs...
http://www.seekin...
http://www.a...

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Ruby Cookbook