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comp.lang.ruby

What books to buy?

Kyrre Nygård

10/14/2006 7:31:00 PM


Hey all!

I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
But what books should I buy?

01
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>P...
Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
02
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
03
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
on Rails: Up and Running
04
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
05
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))

Is this a good mixture? For instance, with 02, do I really
need 03? Or with 03, do I really need 02? Please give me your input
guys. I don't have too much money to spend.

Thanks,
Kyrre
22 Answers

Tim Hunter

10/14/2006 7:39:00 PM

0

Kyrre Nygård wrote:
>
> Hey all!
>
> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
> But what books should I buy?
Start with David Black's _Ruby for Rails_.

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

10/14/2006 7:50:00 PM

0

Kyrre Nygård wrote:
>
> Hey all!
>
> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But
> what books should I buy?
>
> 01
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>P...
> Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
> 02
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
> Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
> 03
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
> on Rails: Up and Running
> 04
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
> Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
> 05
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
> Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
>
> Is this a good mixture? For instance, with 02, do I really need
> 03? Or with 03, do I really need 02? Please give me your input guys. I
> don't have too much money to spend.
>
> Thanks,
> Kyrre
>
>
>
I would buy the Second Edition of Agile Web Development With Rails
directly from Pragmatic (in beta), and download the required "Edge
Rails". For background, I would buy Programming Ruby in PDF from
Pragmatic, since the paper versions aren't updated as frequently. And I
would buy David Black's "Ruby for Rails" from Manning, which isn't
listed in your selections. I believe it's available in both PDF and paper.

Well ... you said you aspire to becoming a *great* Ruby/Rails developer.
:) If that's too much for you, just get David Black's book and play
around with the tutorials.

James Britt

10/14/2006 9:10:00 PM

0

Kyrre Nygård wrote:
>
> Hey all!
>
> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer. But
> what books should I buy?

Go get David Black's book, Ruby for Rails, and then use Google for free
Ruby tutorials and guides and API docs. And ask a lot of questions here.

Spend your remaining money on books about software development and
software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.


--
James Britt

"A principle or axiom is of no value without the rules for applying it."
- Len Bullard

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

10/14/2006 9:32:00 PM

0

James Britt wrote:
> Kyrre Nygård wrote:
>>
>> Hey all!
>>
>> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well as Rails developer.
>> But what books should I buy?
>
> Go get David Black's book, Ruby for Rails, and then use Google for free
> Ruby tutorials and guides and API docs. And ask a lot of questions here.
>
> Spend your remaining money on books about software development and
> software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.
>
>
You mean there aren't any Ruby-specific software engineering books? :)

But seriously, for someone on a low budget, start with David Black's
book, then start accumulating PDFs from Pragmatic on an "as-needed"
basis. All the good software engineering/agile practices are
well-represented in the Pragmatic bookshelf.

By the way, I never did see any info on the original poster's experience
level or background. I assumed from the post that he was an experienced
programmer who wanted to branch into Ruby and Rails, given his initial
selection.

J2M

10/15/2006 1:03:00 AM

0

Get Agile Web Development by Dave Thomas & Ruby for Rails by David
Black. I would also get the pdf of Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas as
it is a great reference.

Take the time to get out of rails and do some straight ruby coding.

Kyrre Nygård

10/15/2006 10:19:00 AM

0


Thank you all for such wonderful advice!

My background is basically just simple shell scripting.

I wish to avoid PDF because I don't want to hurt my eyes too much.

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

All the best,
Kyrre

At 21:30 14.10.2006, Kyrre Nygård wrote:

> Hey all!
>
> I aspire to become a great Ruby as well
> as Rails developer. But what books should I buy?
>
> 01
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0974514055/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance>P...
> Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
> 02
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097669400X/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
> Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide (Pragmatic Programmers)
> 03
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596101325/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
> on Rails: Up and Running
> 04
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596527314/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glanc...
> Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
> 05
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596523696/ref=ord_cart_shr/102-8499224-6872917?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glan...
> Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly))
>
> Is this a good mixture? For instance,
> with 02, do I really need 03? Or with 03, do I
> really need 02? Please give me your input guys.
> I don't have too much money to spend.
>
>Thanks,
>Kyrre
>

Kyrre Nygård

10/15/2006 10:29:00 AM

0

At 23:09 14.10.2006, James Britt wrote:
>Spend your remaining money on books about software development and
>software engineering, not just Ruby stuff.
>
>
>--
>James Britt
>
>"A principle or axiom is of no value without the rules for applying it."
> - Len Bullard

Hello James!

Yes I would be really interested in that.
Any suggestions?

I see one here that looks good:

Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects

How about that?

Thanks,
Kyrre

Hal E. Fulton

10/15/2006 2:26:00 PM

0

Kyrre Nygård wrote:
>
> I see one here that looks good:
>
> Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects
>

I've looked at that, it seemed fairly good to me.

I also recommend _Refactoring_ and _Design Patterns_ and
_The Pragmatic Programmer_.

And if you want to look "under the hood" at all, you should
read _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_.

There's also a second edition of _The Ruby Way_ coming out
in a week or two. Some people like it.


Hal

David Vallner

10/15/2006 4:03:00 PM

0

Hal Fulton wrote:
> I also recommend _Refactoring_ and _Design Patterns_ and
> _The Pragmatic Programmer_.
>

Along those lines, avoid "Head First", a little too detractingly silly
for me. And "Code Complete" could be a possible alternative / complement
to The Pragmatic Programmer. (Warning, C++ and its -isms inside. Very
down-to-earth and universally applicable book otherwise, especially for
making "real-world" software.)

For learning Ruby itself, I went fine with the free online Pickaxe and
then reading the 1.8 release changelog - more than enough if you've
learned enough programming languages already to know they're all the
same at a level anyway ;P

However, I'd get Pickaxe 2nd ed for the cleaned-up printable standard
lib reference.

David Vallner

Rich Morin

10/15/2006 4:42:00 PM

0

At 7:18 PM +0900 10/15/06, Kyrre Nygård wrote:
> So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
> I thought they were good at it!

Although I'm sure that O'Reilly has some books in the works,
their only Ruby/Rails book (that I know of) is

Ruby in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
Yukihiro Matsumoto, 2002

Although it is certainly authoritative (:-), it is not really
appropriate as an introductory text.


Here are some books I'd like to see:

Algorithms in Ruby
Robert Sedgewick, ???

This would show how to implement assorted algorithms,
using Ruby's peculiar control structures, etc.

Higher Order Ruby
Mark-Jason Dominus, ???

This would take MJD's notions from Perl, where they
are hard to implement, to Ruby, where they aren't.

Programming in Ruby
David Black

This would be an "expanded subset" of "Ruby on Rails".
It would teach programming, using Ruby as the language.

-r
--
http://www.cf... Rich Morin
http://www.cf.../resume rdm@cfcl.com
http://www.cf.../weblog +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development