Pushed a new beta of PickAxe 3

I’ve just finished a first pass through the built-in library reference
for the third edition of the PickAxe. Totting up the numbers, I see 6
more classes and something like 200 new methods. A boatload of the
existing methods have changes too, from additional calling sequences
to new defaults.

Enjoy

Dave

On Mar 20, 7:09 am, Dave T. [email protected] wrote:

I’ve just finished a first pass through the built-in library reference
for the third edition of the PickAxe. Totting up the numbers, I see 6
more classes and something like 200 new methods. A boatload of the
existing methods have changes too, from additional calling sequences
to new defaults.

Enjoy

Dave

Well you better get cracking then!
Only kidding :wink:

cheers,

On Mar 19, 2008, at 11:29 PM, [email protected] wrote:

Well you better get cracking then!
Only kidding :wink:

Already did–all those changes are in the beta I just pushed :slight_smile:

Dave

Dave T. wrote:

On Mar 19, 2008, at 11:29 PM, [email protected] wrote:

Well you better get cracking then!
Only kidding :wink:

Already did–all those changes are in the beta I just pushed :slight_smile:

Thank you!

Regards,

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:42:13 -0400
Bil K. [email protected] wrote:


http://twitter.com/bil_kleb

yep, thanks,
just ‘regenerating’ it know.

cheers,

Dave T. wrote:

I’ve just finished a first pass through the built-in library reference
for the third edition of the PickAxe. Totting up the numbers, I see 6
more classes and something like 200 new methods.

Makes me wonder if Matz et al have reviewed Guy Steel’s “Growing a
Language”
1998 OOPSLA talk lately:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8860158196198824415

Regards,

http://twitter.com/bil_kleb

P.S. Thanks to Marick for the link – I’d only previously heard legend
of this talk.

On 3/29/08, Bil K. [email protected] wrote:

Dave T. wrote:

I’ve just finished a first pass through the built-in library reference
for the third edition of the PickAxe. Totting up the numbers, I see 6
more classes and something like 200 new methods.

Makes me wonder if Matz et al have reviewed Guy Steel’s “Growing a Language”
1998 OOPSLA talk lately:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8860158196198824415

Ahh, that video brings back memories. As I recall I was sitting
somewhere near the camera. I particularly loved the “person at work
who deals with marks of trade.”

Those were the good old days, before Powerpoint (or at least laptops
and projectors) when we used to carry our talks as boxes of
transparencies (or foils as we used to call them at IBM).

Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

Rick DeNatale wrote:

Those were the good old days, before Powerpoint (or at least laptops
and projectors) when we used to carry our talks as boxes of
transparencies (or foils as we used to call them at IBM).

Hence the expression, “Curses! Foiled again!” :slight_smile:

Bil K. wrote:

Dave T. wrote:

I’ve just finished a first pass through the built-in library
reference for the third edition of the PickAxe. Totting up the
numbers, I see 6 more classes and something like 200 new methods.

Makes me wonder if Matz et al have reviewed Guy Steel’s “Growing a
Language”
1998 OOPSLA talk lately:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8860158196198824415
Quoting from the talk:
“A good programmer does not just write programs,(…) a good programmer
does language design”. So Matz’s claim at Euruko that he’s not really a
good programmer is pure humility :slight_smile:
V.-

In article [email protected], Bil K. [email protected] wrote:

more classes and something like 200 new methods.

Makes me wonder if Matz et al have reviewed Guy Steel’s “Growing a Language”
1998 OOPSLA talk lately:

P.S. Thanks to Marick for the link – I’d only previously heard legend
of this talk.

Thank you! I had never.

The first language I fell in love with was designed by a linguist (named
Wall) and, in addition to making user-defined words look like built-in
words, he gave it a lot of grammar. Even after the additions Steel
recommended Java still has very little grammar. Which is why I never
liked it.

In Ruby you could always make things look like they were built-in, and
it had a lot of grammar, like if modifiers or the asterisk for list
assignement. I like that better than a big choice of methods.