Rubyisms In Rails DRM Woes?

2006-08-25T16:02:00-07:00

Sorry for the silence. I was on vacation in Alaska recently, so I’ve not really been in the blogging mood. But here is a short note and plea for understanding.

Early reviews (okay, review as I’ve only had one; let me know if you’ve written one or want to do a review) of the ebook have been encouragingly favorable, but the biggest complaints I’ve gotten so far have been about the DRM. I have spoken to my publisher and she’s informed me this was a mistake that was corrected after the first day, and if you’ve been stung with a DRM-afflicted version, we will provide you with a DRM-free replacement. Furthermore, no books in the Ruby Shortcut series will have DRM.

The best way to do this would be to mail me directly and I will pass along your email address to my publisher to send you a replacement copy. My email address is harrisj @ schizopolis.net. It’s probably easier to just click that mailto link above though.

Sorry for the problems. This is a new direction for them and me, and I guess we still had a few kinks to work out. Thanks for your patience.

Rubyisms in Rails Redux

2006-08-02T09:46:00-07:00

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).

Nimble Code: Tag rubyisms

Rubyisms In Rails DRM Woes?

Rubyisms in Rails Redux

Update