The Open Source Zone

This book was too dry for me. In fact, I didn't finish it. I like to open a book and look at the code examples before I buy it but, in this case, I bought it online. It seemed to me that the examples weren't very interesting and had a great deal of math in them. When I pick up a book of this type, if a lot of the examples include math examples, I don't purchase it. I am one of those people that is horrible in math and I usually don't get the examples.

Since I did not read through the entire book, I will give it 3 stars since I just don't know what is in it (besides math). I went with Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition version.

Again, don't take this to heart that one book is better than another. There might have been very valuable information that I missed but, when I want examples, I want real world examples that I can wrap my head around.

This book makes it easy to understand difficult topics in Ruby. I loved the way the authors gradually built up from a simple example and illustrated the complicated concepts. Reminds me of my favorite Electronics teacher in college.

Beginners must read this book.

I have read other books from the 21 days series some time ago and was far from impressed. But since introduction books for Ruby are limited, I reluctantly decided to give this one a try. I am happy to say I have no regrets about reading it. I am actually surprised how much I learned from it. This book really serves well anyone who is not familar with Object Oriented programming. The author has presented the chapters in good order and provides clear explanations and example code. The only problem I have with the book is the high number of typos.

As of mid '05, this book is a little dated and is a couple of versions behind the current (1.8.2) release of ruby. Regardless, it still covers all of the necessary basics and in a very reader friendly order. The book is said to be written assuming no prior programming experience - however such a book as this is not really an introduction to programming. It does serve as a great introduction for just about anyone with some experience with just about any recent language - such as java, vb, vb.net or c#, and especially perl or python. The writing is clear and applies well towards learning. At times it may go a little too slow for the developer with experience behind them; however they should be able to read the entire book with its exercises in much less than a week with no problems; and be fairly productive in ruby at the end.

Like most beginners books, you'll want to follow up with a more thorough book like the Dave Thomas' pickaxe or The Ruby Way - but this is more than enough to get someone started. Just keep in mind that you are only going to learn the basics - if you have several years of practice behind you, especially if you understand the difference between a dynamic language like ruby and static ones like java and c# - then you will be better off skipping this one and going with the pickaxe book (search for Dave Thomas). Otherwise this is a great intro.

This book is marred by sloppy editing -- the devil is in the details. A casual reading turned up no less than five places where the meaning of illustrative materials or figures thwarted or contradicted the author's intent (and, in some cases, machine logic!) There is one diagram that was slapped onto the pasteboard and scanned to plate in an obvious hurry -- wiping out the top 8 pts of a 10 on 12 pts line of text. Aside from these pitfalls, the book has a chatty, conversational style guaranteed to drive advanced programmers from other disciplines (C, C++, Perl) up the wall. Since only advanced programmers can recognize the many errors, and only newbies will benefit from the chatty style, I can't really give this more than three stars, even though the author is obviously more proficient than SAMS' slapdash editing would indicate.