Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Programming Ruby: A Pragmatic Programmer's Guide by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt ISBN: 0-201-71089-7 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 December, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.72 (25 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A skeptical review
Comment: I bought the book, based upon the enthusiastic reviews here. It's not bad (though probably not worth 5 stars). The first 275 pages provide a fairly well written introduction to the language, followed by 350 pages of a so-so reference guide. (For example, pp. 166-169 give an example of using Rube for creating OLE clients and promises that the reference section "describes the class in detail." However, the reference section consists of one line descriptions of the class methods and an example taken from the distribution with no further comments. Not exactly helpful.)
I was expecting to like the language--advertised as a more object-oriented version of Python--but was rather disappointed. The syntax, at least for someone from a C/C++/Java background, is unusual and occasionally cryptic. The choice of some keywords is odd and inconsistent (to_s converts to a string, elsewhere you get Pascal-type naming conventions, e.g. deleteFirst). There are some nice features, such as closures, but it lacks the huge library of Java or the easy accessability of Python.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great Introduction
Comment: This is a great Introduction to Ruby. However, I would appreciate an update that includes instruction/examples on using databases and more web examples -- especially persistence and ssl. This is probably because this seems to be the very first book published on Ruby and probably many of these modules weren't written yet.
This book has an excellent reference section too.
If the authors decide to update the book -- which I strongly recommend, I will buy a copy. Since Ruby is still a young and evolving language -- maybe they will write yearly editions and I will be glad to subscribe to this book's yearly editions.
Rating: 4
Summary: Quick and effective introduction to Ruby
Comment: The authors have a wonderful style for introducting the lanaguage Ruby, assuming that you have at least a small amount of prior programming experience. The order of presentation and the amount of polish throughout made this a joy to read and introduces Ruby at a very rapid, yet comfortable, pace.
It does seem to suffer from wanting to be both an introduction to Ruby and a reference manual as well; the last several chapters look (and read like) reference materials. While I'm not opposed to that, the book doesn't have the kind of binding that lets it easily lay flat on your desk open to the page, so I'm more inclined to just open the docs on a separate monitor instead. The book might as well have been lighter and just had a pointer to docs online.
Also, I wonder if some of the presentations of concepts like closures and contiuations aren't a bit too rapid for the casual reader. If you've had a programming background in Scheme or Lisp, it's old hat; however, as I was reading through their presentations and the relatively quick examples, it felt likely that many readers wouldn't get a lot of the subtelty in what was going on under the hood to make the language features work or in what kinds of real world scenarios those sorts of features are useful.
 |
Title: The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton ISBN: 0672320835 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 17 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
 |
Title: Ruby In A Nutshell by Yukihiro Matsumoto ISBN: 0596002149 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days by Mark Slagell ISBN: 0672322528 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 22 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
 |
Title: Ruby Developer's Guide by Michael Neumann, Lyle Johnson, Robert Feldt, Robert Feldt, Lyle Johnson, Jonothon Ortiz ISBN: 1928994644 Publisher: Syngress Pub. Date: 18 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
 |
Title: Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck ISBN: 0321146530 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 08 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
