7 Ruby Programming ebook

Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 7:51pm

Ruby F. wrote:

On May 16, 8:58 am, “Pablo Q.” [email protected] wrote:

I know why you are so angry.

http://groups.google.com/group/cowpu/browse_thread/thread/e0ed5165cd4…

Go ahead I say, buy whatever you wants. I 'm a linux user, so I don’t think
that I will have problem with malware stuffs!

Pablo,
It’s amusing that the thread you referenced involves “Honest” members
of Users Group receiving free books from the publisher in trade for
providing reviews. I have no reason to be angry about that.
You see, there are benefits to having integrity.

Good luck to you.

You keep pandering to the best corporate insterests, that sure is
“integrity”. Keep making tha fat cats fatter when dealing with knowledge
as if it was a merchandise and not a right.

The internet offers a voice and power to those who can’t afford
capitalist imposed quotas. Or do you feel that only US and Europe and
entitled to knowledge because they cas easily throw away X amount of
dollars while other people base their economy working in factories for
you to wear snickers and cool t-shirts and eat tropical fruits and
coffee?

Maybe you are one of those that just KNOWS that the poor are poor
because they are incompetent and lazy? Tell you what, you wake up from
your comfortable living and then judge others in not so comfortable
situations for trying to learn by downloading a goddamn book, ok? no?

Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 8:16pm

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As23 Mega wrote:

|
| You keep pandering to the best corporate insterests, that sure is
| “integrity”. Keep making tha fat cats fatter when dealing with knowledge
| as if it was a merchandise and not a right.

It is a merchandise. TANSTAFL. People invested their time and effort
in it, and that deserves compensation.

| The internet offers a voice and power to those who can’t afford
| capitalist imposed quotas. Or do you feel that only US and Europe and
| entitled to knowledge because they cas easily throw away X amount of
| dollars while other people base their economy working in factories for
| you to wear snickers and cool t-shirts and eat tropical fruits and
| coffee?

Bullshit. Everybody is free to buy the goods. If they can’t afford it:
Tough luck. I can’t afford a Ferrari, yet I’m not stealing one.

You know, that’s what is called ‘integrity’. ‘Honor’. ‘Fairness’.

Oh, and I’m offering you the once in a lifetime chance of putting your
money where your mouth is: Send me a cheque over all your money, so I
can attain the standard of living I feel entitled to. Deal?

(What, you think the poor are only limited to Africa and Latin America?
I can’t afford to buy all the books I want, either. Yet I am not
defrauding others of their work. Funny how that works.)

| Maybe you are one of those that just KNOWS that the poor are poor
| because they are incompetent and lazy?

Zimbabwe, Cuba, North Korea… The leaders creating the poverty sure seem
incompetent.

| Tell you what, you wake up from
| your comfortable living and then judge others in not so comfortable
| situations for trying to learn by downloading a goddamn book, ok? no?

Tell you what: Visit an Econ 101 course, and please, please read The
Capital, too, not just the Communist Manifesto, ok? no?

Also: There are absolutely free, no strings attached alternatives to
defrauding people like Dave T., or Matz, or Peter C., which are
even regularly advertised on this very mailing list.

Say, do you defraud the plumber, too who fixes your sink? Your
electrician? The mechanic fixing your car? The bus driver? The taxi
driver?

Before you start trolling, at least do a little research. This is
insulting to the list’s members.

Phillip G.
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

~ I imagine bugs and girls have a dim perception that nature played a
cruel trick on them, but they lack the intelligence to really comprehend
the magnitude of it. – Calvin
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Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 8:37pm

On May 16, 2008, at 12:51 PM, As23 Mega wrote:

You keep pandering to the best corporate insterests, that sure is
“integrity”. Keep making tha fat cats fatter when dealing with
knowledge
as if it was a merchandise and not a right.

Knowledge is not merchandise. When you buy a book, you’re paying the
author for his or her time organizing that knowledge for you—you’re
paying for a service. If you don’t want to pay for that service,
you’re free to use the available knowledge to learn just the same way
the original author did. You can read the source code, write the
thousands of lines of code, read the web, email experts, put stuff out
for review, and so on. For most people, the money spent on a book
repays the opportunity cost of the time they’d otherwise spent
gathering, filtering and organizing the knowledge for themselves. If
that equation doesn’t work in particular circumstances, then the
source knowledge is still there. But stealing the book is not
defeating a capitalist machine. It’s simply a disincentive for that
author to put the effort in to creating another book.

Dave

Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 8:21pm

Please folks. This is Ruby T…

Can we get back to Ruby now?

James Edward G. II

Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 8:41pm

Bullshit. Everybody is free to buy the goods. If they can’t afford it:
Tough luck. I can’t afford a Ferrari, yet I’m not stealing one.

Oh man, now this is just sad! To you a book is mere merchandise, to
millions of people is knowledge, power, opportunity. A big compendium of
wisdom that is to be valued and cherish, above the mighty (haha!) dollar
and those who worship it. A Ferrari? Why the hell would somebody want to
support a Ferrari that is the equivalent of thousands of invaluable
books! Not all authors are money grabbing whores, some actually care
that their knowledge is spread

Before you start trolling, at least do a little research. This is
insulting to the list’s members

Yeah, clearly I’m the one who is deluded here.
Still despite you, I choose to believe in mankind. Oh and I did get
economy lessons, I actually passed 101 with 100%, not that it matters
though, because clearly not everybody learns, there’s more to the real
world than a classroom and a book you know.
You better stick to technical questions my Kapitalist-Jugend.

Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 3:19pm

Pablo
The best option is to get the free books that are available. That way
everybody benefits. Those “free versions” are insulting to the authors,
since they do not get paid at all. Hey, ask nicely and somebody might
send
you a free used copy.

Rest of the world,
An O’Reilly book costing $45 in the USA costs significantly much more in
Peru; instead of making a straight conversion, think on monthly minimum
wages. A $45 book at $7 per hour means roughly 6.5 hours. Monthly
minimum
wage in Peru amounts to $179, which amounts 25% of a monthly minimum
wage.
Do you see the disparity, and the lack of incentives for people in Peru
to
get the book through Amazon?
So, educate the user and help them find legal sources, instead of
accusing
them of thieving.

Best regards,

Camilo

Laurynn · May 16, 2008, 8:44pm

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Fun fact:

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Google Mail’s Terms of Service.

I took the liberty of reporting this email to Google.

That being said, I bow out of this discussion.

Phillip G.
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.
~ – George Bernard Shaw
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Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 6:01pm

On Thursday 22 May 2008, Avdi G. wrote:

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:18 AM, Camilo [email protected] wrote:

Rest of the world,
An O’Reilly book costing $45 in the USA costs significantly much
more in Peru; instead of making a straight conversion, think on
monthly minimum wages.

I was under the impression that publishers priced differently in
different markets. Is this not the case?

That may be true for academic textbooks where several publishers
have “international” (read: non-US) editions. For technical books in
general this doesn’t appear to be true. I live in Germany and often
find that it is cheaper to order books from amazon.com than from
amazon.de, even taking customs duty into account.

Michael

Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 5:38pm

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:18 AM, Camilo [email protected] wrote:

Rest of the world,
An O’Reilly book costing $45 in the USA costs significantly much more in
Peru; instead of making a straight conversion, think on monthly minimum
wages.

I was under the impression that publishers priced differently in
different markets. Is this not the case?

–
Avdi

Home: http://avdi.org
Developer Blog: Avdi Grimm, Code Cleric
Twitter: http://twitter.com/avdi
Journal: http://avdi.livejournal.com

Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 6:11pm

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Michael S. [email protected]
wrote:

That may be true for academic textbooks where several publishers
have “international” (read: non-US) editions. For technical books in
general this doesn’t appear to be true. I live in Germany and often
find that it is cheaper to order books from amazon.com than from
amazon.de, even taking customs duty into account.

I wouldn’t expect the prices to be reduced for an advanced Western
nation like Germany. I’m curious about the pricing in the third
world.

–
Avdi

Home: http://avdi.org
Developer Blog: Avdi Grimm, Code Cleric
Twitter: http://twitter.com/avdi
Journal: http://avdi.livejournal.com

Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 6:22pm

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Avdi G. wrote:

| I wouldn’t expect the prices to be reduced for an advanced Western
| nation like Germany. I’m curious about the pricing in the third
| world.

I noted this in my other email, but you might miss that, so:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/05/why-are-books-s.html

Phillip G.
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

10 years old is a good age to get stuck at.
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Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 8:48pm

On Thursday 22 May 2008, Phillip G. wrote:

This may be an artifact of the German Buchpreisbindung.

As you explain yourself, it does not apply to non-german books.

Michael

Laurynn · May 22, 2008, 6:20pm

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Michael S. wrote:
| On Thursday 22 May 2008, Avdi G. wrote:
|> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:18 AM, Camilo [email protected] wrote:
|>> Rest of the world,
|>> An O’Reilly book costing $45 in the USA costs significantly much
|>> more in Peru; instead of making a straight conversion, think on
|>> monthly minimum wages.
|> I was under the impression that publishers priced differently in
|> different markets. Is this not the case?
|
| That may be true for academic textbooks where several publishers
| have “international” (read: non-US) editions. For technical books in
| general this doesn’t appear to be true. I live in Germany and often
| find that it is cheaper to order books from amazon.com than from
| amazon.de, even taking customs duty into account.

This may be an artifact of the German Buchpreisbindung.

For our international friends:

Books are a cultural good, and thus not something you should leave to
the market forces, which also means a lower VAT of 7% instead of 19%.
Therefore, books are priced according to page count and type of binding
(hardcovers can be more expensive than softcovers, which in turn can be
more expensive than pocketbooks).

Which means that highly successful books like by Stephen King are as
expensive (or cheap) as the less successful books (like Wolfgang
Holbein).

(N.B.: The German book market is thriving, and new talent, German as
well as international, gets published, too.)

However: This only counts for books produced and sold in Germany, and
that aren’t damaged (this leads to funny situations, where books get
priced cheaper that only have a black marker going across the pages on
the outside, say the bottom, and which are otherwise fine). Imported
books can be priced as the retailer likes, as they aren’t covered by the
Buchpreisbindung.

This makes it unattractive to go to the length of translating a
technical book (most of us developers can speak English anyhow, if only
for professional reasons) and printing a German version of it.

This also means, that the books have to be imported at a cost, and that,
in turn, increases the price for the end-consumer.

And yes, especially with the US Dollar being as weak as it is, importing
a book from the US is cheaper (especially if you manage to stay below
the customs duty threshold of 5 Euros: Then it is only a trip to customs
to pick up the books).

Also, Tyler Cowen touched on this subject in a recent blog post:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/05/why-are-books-s.html

Phillip G.
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

Use recursive procedures for recursively-defined data structures.
~ - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plaugher)
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Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 7:17am

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Phillip G.

Bullshit. Everybody is free to buy the goods. If they can’t afford it:
Tough luck. I can’t afford a Ferrari, yet I’m not stealing one.

The problem is that here in Peru and most of South America, almost
nobody can spend 45$ on a book and education really sucks. So I guess
you suggest that people should just keep there ‘integrity’. ‘Honor’
and ‘Fairness’ by not downloading books and stay ignorant?

Zimbabwe, Cuba, North Korea… The leaders creating the poverty sure seem
incompetent.

Ok so because leaders are incompetent I should just wait for democracy
to come one day and stay ignorant in the meantime? That’s weird.

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 4:19pm

On Fri, 2008-05-30 at 12:27 +0900, Patrick A. wrote:

Ok so because leaders are incompetent I should just wait for democracy
to come one day and stay ignorant in the meantime? That’s weird.

You are dealing with people, Patrick, who build up a huge head of
righteous indignation while forgetting that the USA, at the turn of the
20th century, didn’t respect foreign copyright. “Intellectual property
protection” only started becoming an issue in the USA when they had some
worth protecting. Now they don’t want any other countries to use the
same techniques they did to bootstrap.

But really, copyright is off-topic I would suspect. We should probably
continue this discussion off-list.

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 4:13pm

Michael S. wrote:

That may be true for academic textbooks where several publishers
have “international” (read: non-US) editions. For technical books in
general this doesn’t appear to be true. I live in Germany and often
find that it is cheaper to order books from amazon.com than from
amazon.de, even taking customs duty into account.

When I was in India last year I picked up a copy of Design Patterns
that
was 640rp (about 16USD). The same book (not the same quality of paper)
is
99USD. The bookstores there were loaded with new, legal printings of
technical books, in English, but are marked as “LPE” (Low Price
Edition).
The book says:

“This edition is manufactured in India and is authorized for sale only
in
India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lank and the Maldives.”

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 4:25pm

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Camilo [email protected] wrote:

Pablo
The best option is to get the free books that are available. That way
everybody benefits. Those “free versions” are insulting to the authors,
since they do not get paid at all. Hey, ask nicely and somebody might send
you a free used copy.

Camillo,

There is no used copy of ruby (or any other o’reilly book) books in
Peru. The only way would be to buy a used version on Amazon or Ebay.
Unfortunately, sending it to Peru would cost at least 50$ + the cost
of the used book. Not very interesting. As for finding somebody
willing to send you a free copy (and waste 50$ for you), good luck
about that.

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 4:26pm

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 7:59 AM, Dave T. [email protected] wrote:

Indeed. According to the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, this general
lack of property rights is one of the main limitations to economic growth in
the region.

The non respect of copyrights is not what’s limiting Latin America
growth, believe me (or google for it) they have way worse problems. I
know that the US is trying to push for DMCA-like and software patents
to other Latin American countries though the TLC and NAFTA but those
won’t help at all if not make the situation worse.

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 5:02pm

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Michael W. Ryder

Where are you getting your $50 figure? Sending a priority mail flat rate
envelope is about $13 for an item weighing up to 4 pounds. Larger items
cost more of course, but a lot of books should fit in that rate. By the way,
that rate is about the same we pay . If you are curious about the shipping
costs go to usps.com and select shipping.

I doubt 7 ruby books enters in an envelope but anyway…

I don’t know if there is anyone
in this group that would do this in this case but it is something to keep in
mind.

Get real, thousands if not millions of devs need those books, do you
think it would be possible to find thousands or millions of westerners
to send used copy for free? Why should we get out of our way anyway to
respect US copyright laws when it’s obvious that the US doesn’t give a
damn about other countries laws… Anyway this is off topic so I’ll
stop here for this thread, let’s get back to ruby hacking

Laurynn · May 30, 2008, 4:27pm

Patrick A. wrote:

There is no used copy of ruby (or any other o’reilly book) books in
Peru. The only way would be to buy a used version on Amazon or Ebay.
Unfortunately, sending it to Peru would cost at least 50$ + the cost
of the used book. Not very interesting. As for finding somebody
willing to send you a free copy (and waste 50$ for you), good luck
about that.

Where are you getting your $50 figure? Sending a priority mail flat
rate envelope is about $13 for an item weighing up to 4 pounds. Larger
items cost more of course, but a lot of books should fit in that rate.
By the way, that rate is about the same we pay . If you are curious
about the shipping costs go to usps.com and select shipping.
As a person that has spent over $40 shipping a computer to Australia,
before the costs went through the ceiling, I know there are those who
will send items to other countries at their expense. I don’t know if
there is anyone in this group that would do this in this case but it is
something to keep in mind.