# Re: My Thought on the "Pickaxe book" (from a Ruby novice) **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [January 19, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-my-thought-on-the-pickaxe-book-from-a-ruby-novice/52838 "2006-01-19T17:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gennady_B)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-my-thought-on-the-pickaxe-book-from-a-ruby-novice/52838/1 "2006-01-19T17:45:18Z")
But there’re not THAT many ways to do something even in Ruby, so you pretty quickly pickup most of them. Moreover, for me learnig about every new way of doing things was quite educational and I enjoyed greatly when realizing that something that took me 20 lines of code before, now takes 5 if not 1 (in some cases). This is what I found true about Ruby: Another (better) way =\> less code =\> less bugs =\> more fun Gennady. ---
**Author:** ![Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gennady_B)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-my-thought-on-the-pickaxe-book-from-a-ruby-novice/52838/2 "2006-01-20T01:00:25Z")
On Jan 19, 2006, at 8:07, Gennady B. wrote: > But there’re not THAT many ways to do something even in Ruby, Have you been paying any attention to this maillist? Oh, my gosh. The recent thread about counting unique elements in an array generated an armload of possibilities, all different, for example. Some people will do Regex magic, others use .inject or some tricky form of .each. One person uses symbolic hashes, another adds a new method to the class. I must agree; the Pickaxe book is a great reference but a lousy tutorial. I don’t _want_ to learn the nine ways to iterate. I want to learn one, so I can move on to other ideas. If I spend a lot of time iterating, THEN I’ll go read the later chapter on iterating and find the shorter, quicker, less-typing way of doing it. But if I get them all at once, I can’t even figure out which one to use until I’ve figured them all out, and to then discover that they’re all the same dang thing is just exasperating. I don’t need && and “and” because i already know how to use parentheses, for example. The key lessons and important concepts are lost in the noise of learning nine ways to do the same thing. Well, I’m sure somebody’s going to write the “Learn Ruby in 14 days” book or the “Ruby for Dummies” book or something else, and the Pickaxe book can just be The Reference Book. ---
**Author:** ![Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gennady_B)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-my-thought-on-the-pickaxe-book-from-a-ruby-novice/52838/3 "2006-01-20T01:15:35Z")
Hi – On Fri, 20 Jan 2006, Dave H. wrote: > Well, I’m sure somebody’s going to write the “Learn Ruby in 14 days” book or > the “Ruby for Dummies” book or something else, and the Pickaxe book can just > be The Reference Book. You could always chop 33% out of the 21 days book 🙂 The Pickaxe is the Pickaxe. Everyone gets something from it, and probably different things, including (at least in my case) a ton of tutorial benefit. No need to pigeonhole it. If it walks like a tutorial and talks like a tutorial… 🙂 David – David A. Black removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid “Ruby for Rails”, from Manning Publications, coming April 2006! > **[Ruby for Rails](https://www.manning.com/books/ruby-for-rails)** > > NEWER EDITION AVAILABLE > > The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Second Edition is now available. An eBook of the previous edition, The Well-Grounded Rubyist is included at no additional cost when you buy the revised edition! > > > Ruby for Rails helps Rails... ---
**Author:** ![Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@Gennady\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gennady_B)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-my-thought-on-the-pickaxe-book-from-a-ruby-novice/52838/4 "2006-01-20T01:24:38Z")
On Jan 19, 2006, at 6:22 PM, Dave H. wrote: > Have you been paying any attention to this maillist? Oh, my gosh. > The recent thread about counting unique elements in an array > generated an armload of possibilities, all different, for example. > Some people will do Regex magic, others use .inject or some tricky > form of .each. One person uses symbolic hashes, another adds a new > method to the class. Is it any surprise that there are an almost infinite number of ways to construct an algorithm to count unique elements? I just don’t see how that observation says anything at all about Ruby as opposed to something about the theory of algorithms. Or more simply, wouldn’t you have the same response if the solutions were required to be in any other language you might choose? If I were forced to point out a redundant _language feature_ of Ruby I would point to for/in versus each. Gary W.