Reviews Wanted.
I’ve read the tables of contents and haven’t yet made up my mind.
Is one book clearly better than the other? Is one clearly full of bugs?
Is one so much
further ahead that there is no choice? Are they both so incomplete that
I should just
wait and only cook real food? Do trains still have dining cars?
Warren Fred
On 6/8/06, Warren S. [email protected] wrote:
Warren Fred
Warren
I have both and at this point I would have to say that Rails Recipes
is a better choice. It seems to me that the explanations in Rails
Recipes are more thorough and descriptive than those in Rails
Cookbook.
To be fair, the Cookbook is still in Rough Cuts form and is not yet
complete, so the jury is still out on that one.
Todd B.
May I get in on this thread please - I’ve been looking starry eyed at
Recipes, yet I’m 4 days into ROR via Agile Web D… I looked at
the
Recipes site and it’s clear that before you can use a recipe you need to
learn how to cook. Apparently the book leaves much to the readers /
developers responsibilities, Could a beginner derive value and even
perhaps
satisfaction from this book or would it be just to frustrating trying to
come up with code that is not in the book ?
Hope my question is clear.
Stuart
Are y’all referring to the Ruby Cookbook from O’Reilly? I don’t
believe there’s a Rails Cookbook… Anyway, I have both, and much
prefer the Rails Recipes from the Pragmatic Programmers. It’s kind of
a must-have companion for the Agile book… and it’s also finished.
The O’Reilly book seems not only far from completion, but not
particularly Rails-specific (not that that’s a bad thing). Just my two
cents.
“veteran Depot tutorialist” …that’s funny.
Actually I read about the “level” one should be at for Rails Receipes in
the
RR forum.
In some ways (still working my way through the Depot) I’m not sure if
having
a tutorial like that in the beginning of the book is such a good thing.
Things seem to progress very quickly where many points that could /
should
be made are not.
Stuart
Dark A. wrote:
May I get in on this thread please - I’ve been looking starry eyed at
Recipes, yet I’m 4 days into ROR via Agile Web D… I looked at
the
Recipes site and it’s clear that before you can use a recipe you need to
learn how to cook. Apparently the book leaves much to the readers /
developers responsibilities, Could a beginner derive value and even
perhaps
satisfaction from this book or would it be just to frustrating trying to
come up with code that is not in the book ?
Hope my question is clear.Stuart
Unfortunately there is no warning that Rails Recipes is only for gourmet
cooks. It wouldn’t be a total loss for me if each recipe had complete
self-contained runnable code; you can at least see what it’s all about,
and maybe pick your way around something that you can see is working
because all the ingredients are there. Many times I find myself asking
the questions, “Ok, so where do I put that code.” Or, “How do I do
that?” Or “What else do I need to do before or after I drop the garlic
into the pan.” I just hope that by the time I know enough (hey, it’s my
fault that I don’t know enough!) to get those delicious recipes to run,
they haven’t gone stale.
I also have Bob Orsini’s Rails Cookbook. Very rough cut at the moment.
It’s at my level of preparedness right now (I am a veteran Depot
tutorialist; you don’t know how much you don’t know until you wean
yourself from those tutorials and start creating your own app).
.02
Well you have gotten your answer. Recipes seems to be better for now.
However if I can give one extra recommendation. Don’t just buy RoR
books. Mix in standard Ruby books. For example the Pragmatic’s
“Programming Ruby” should be a required reading and it is a great
lookup book. Countless times have I looked up the pages for the
Standard Library or the built in classes. No book has ever been as
useful for me.
The reason for why you should get Ruby books as well is not only to
deepen you understanding on how RoR works. It’s also because RoR does
only try to be for 80% of what you do. But that doesn’t mean that you
have to use something else than Ruby for the other 20% of projects.
Just means RoR is not the best choice for that particular thing. For
some things you might even go for the Nitro Project. Some things are
done as pure Ruby.
On 6/8/06, Warren S. [email protected] wrote:
Warren Fred
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
–
If ya can’t stand the heat…
ReggW wrote:
Jón Borgþórsson wrote:
For
some things you might even go for the Nitro Project. Some things are
done as pure Ruby.It’s kind of in bad form to throw in this “Nitro” thing when we are
struggling with the understanding and concept of RoR…Too many cooks in the kitchen…
Jón Borgþórsson wrote:
For
some things you might even go for the Nitro Project. Some things are
done as pure Ruby.
It’s kind of in bad form to throw in this “Nitro” thing when we are
struggling with the understanding and concept of RoR 
…Too many cooks in the kitchen…
I use the pickaxe (Programming Ruby) daily. I wish the index were in
the table of
contents (likewise for agile…) and I get annoyed that the libraries
are alphabetized
twice (a-z and then a-z for a different set) but I use it daily. I also
get annoyed that
the tabular data after the index is also omitted from the table of
contents.
Warren S.
I may be wrong but I’m under the impression that ruby 2.0 won’t be here
for well over a year.
On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 15:47 +0200, Hopeful Skeptic wrote:
Warren S. wrote:
Charlie B.
Programmer
Castle Branch Inc.
I’d like to also say that “Ruby for Rails” by David Black is a good book
and
one that gives you Ruby fundamentals as well as Rails. I’ve only
started
working through it however the flow seems well suited for a beginner
like
myself.
Stuart
I have just the PDF of the pickaxe. Recently I searched for the ‘send’
method. I saw it
in some scaffold code. It took a long time for it to show up as a
method because the word
is used all over and Adobe Reader doesn’t search by just the word, so it
showed me every
‘sending’. If I’d started with the index I’d have been better off. But
the index isn’t
in the PDF table of contents so I can’t get there with one click.
Send is a method in Object, by the way, that calls a method by its name,
so to speak.
Warren S.
When the next version of the Agile Rails book was announced, I bought
both the printed and PDF version of the book. Right away it was obvious
you could text search the PDF for the subject you were interested in
making it a huge advantage. Receiving the updates is also pretty nice.
I’m actually thinking about getting the same subscription for the
Pike-axe book for the same reason.
I wonder when Ruby 2.0 will show up though.
Warren S. wrote:
I use the pickaxe (Programming Ruby) daily. I wish the index were in
the table of
contents (likewise for agile…) and I get annoyed that the libraries
are alphabetized
twice (a-z and then a-z for a different set) but I use it daily. I also
get annoyed that
the tabular data after the index is also omitted from the table of
contents.Warren S.
you can search for "send " instead of “send”. (notice the space)
Worked for me. 
On 6/9/06, Warren S. [email protected] wrote:
you could text search the PDF for the subject you were interested in
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
–
Warren S. wrote:
I have just the PDF of the pickaxe. Recently I searched for the ‘send’
method. I saw it
in some scaffold code. It took a long time for it to show up as a
method because the word
is used all over and Adobe Reader doesn’t search by just the word, so it
showed me every
‘sending’. If I’d started with the index I’d have been better off. But
the index isn’t
in the PDF table of contents so I can’t get there with one click.Send is a method in Object, by the way, that calls a method by its name,
so to speak.Warren S.
True. There is very little entertainment value in checking a thousand
“send” matches, and it is something I’ve encountered also. Still it has
served me [personaly] well for most things.
As far as Ruby 2.0 coming out in a year goes, [a year] is better news
than [never]. As long as it shows up for the party and answers critics.
I read an article on bitwize.com about some of the short comings in the
language. They had valid points and it would be nice to have that stuff
buttoned up. Here’s the URL in case you’d like to read it:
http://bitwisemag.com/copy/features/opinion/ruby/ruby_debate.html
On 6/9/06, Warren S. [email protected] wrote:
I have just the PDF of the pickaxe. Recently I searched for the ‘send’ method. I saw it
in some scaffold code. It took a long time for it to show up as a method because the word
is used all over and Adobe Reader doesn’t search by just the word, so it showed me every
‘sending’. If I’d started with the index I’d have been better off. But the index isn’t
in the PDF table of contents so I can’t get there with one click.
Preview.app is waaaaay faster. If you’re not on OS X that’s moot
though.
Send is a method in Object, by the way, that calls a method by its name, so to speak.
Not sure if I’m being a nit, but it send an object a message, rather
than calling a method by name. In fact as far as I know, all method
calls are simply sending a message to an object, but that object has a
method defined somewhere to handle it.
irb(main):001:0> class Foo; def method_missing(method); puts method;
end; end
=> nil
irb(main):002:0> Foo.new.send(:chicken)
chicken
Foo doesn’t have a #chicken method, but if it gets sent a message
named chicken then method_missing picks it up (and any other message
name in this case).
On topic: I really like Rails Recipes. Check for my quote on the back
when you receive your copy 
Pat
+1 for Ruby for Rails
Can’t recommend it too highly.
This is why I have the PDF versions of these books – I can search
them!
Curt
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