Rubyisms in Rails Redux
Posted by Jacob Harris Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:46:00 GMT
self.promote!I am pleased to announce that the digital shortcut PDF version (to purchase, you have to go to the Digital Shortcuts page or you can buy it from Safari Sorry!) of my Rubyisms in Rails presentation is finally available for purchase. At 54 pages in length for the low price of $9.99, I guarantee you’ll glean at least 18.5 cents of insight from each page (disclaimer: that’s a mean instructional value; although gorgeous, the title page is not particularly educational in itself).
In addition, the book is also now available in Safari Books Online, and possibly Amazon or other retailers as well. Also, be sure to check out the list of other upcoming Ruby titles.
So, what’s in it? If you’ve read the original presentation, you already have a sense of the scope of material I am covering here, but the shortcut allows me to focus on the material in greater depth. The result is a richer and more thorough examination of the examples presented in the original slides. If you are an intermediate to advanced Rails hacker, you probably know all this stuff already. But if you are a newcomer to Ruby through Rails, or you still find yourself still stuck coding PHP or Java-like Ruby, this ebook might help to align your thinking to the Ruby way.
Will I write another ebook? I’d say yes, but I’ll have to think up another interesting topic. But if you are ever thinking of creating a technical book, I’d recommend starting in a smaller dose like this first. As I discovered, even 54 pages can be a lot of work, and it’s better to test out your time commitments and abilities with something small before you start pitching large references. But that’s a topic for another blog posting. Make me happy: Buy the ebook or read it on Safari and give me your feedback. Thanks!
Update
Fixed purchase link to be go to Shortcuts page (where you can add to cart).
I’ve never understood that “30.minutes.from_now” example. I can see why it’s “cute” in a sounds-like-English kind of way, but in OO terms, what does it mean to have a “minutes” method on a number?
From a pure OO standpoint, is is bad I guess. The main charm is conciseness and immediacy. It’s simply a cute way of abstracting away the fact that people expect multipe units of time, while time (and size) in the computer are only in a single unit (seconds).
I can’t figure out how to actually purchase it once I’m on the digital shortcut page…
Justin, good catch! That site needs a bit of work I guess. You can add the ebook on the top-level shortcuts page, and I’ve corrected the article to compensate. Thanks!
Is the ebook as sold by Informit an ordinary PDF (like ones from O’Reilly), or is it
damagedencoded using Adobe’s eBook DRM (like ones from Amazon)? In the latter case, I think I’ll wait for it to show up on Safari.I loved the book in presentation form enough to purchase a copy of the new version. I have to say one thing though, please don’t support companies that use this horrible DRM software again. I’m a mac user and this just kills us (plus having a page limit on how many pages to print within a month is absurd). Take a queue from the Prag. Prog. guys and release in name-stamped PDFs and have a little faith in your readers. Other than that I’m glad to see another excellent addition to the ruby library.
Geoff, thanks for the input. I must admit I wasn’t really aware of PDF DRM (I’ve tended to buy all my books in physical form), so I will plead in my defense that the problems were caused by ignorance here rather than malice. I have nothing but the highest faith in my readers. I am sorry to hear it though, and I’ll see what I can do with my publisher.
Also, this book is now available in Safari too if that helps. Thank you.
I might purchase the book if it makes it easy for me to do so. Hello! I created an accoutn to login to the system and still no way to add the book to cart.
- Raj
I recently read the book (on Safari), and just wanted to say what a great book it is! I’ve been tinkering with Rails for awhile now, but you hit the nail on the head with the topics you covered: The distinction between “Duck Typing” and strongly-typed languages, Symbols, Blocks and a look at the guts of Rails in the DSL section (I’m not giving too much away, am I?) were just what I needed. Suddenly, a lot of things make sense.
Top notch.
- Cliffe
So my publisher has told me that the Rubyisms DRM was a mistake and was removed after the first day. If you have been affected by this problem, please contact me at harrisj@schizopolis.net and I will get you a replacement copy. Thanks for your patience.