
MacRuby: The Definitive Guide - shawndumas
http://macruby.labs.oreilly.com/index.html
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mattparcher
The book’s author, Matt Aimonetti, explained his reasoning for writing an
open-licensed book back in May:

<http://merbist.com/2010/05/09/writing-an-open-licensed-book/>

~~~
thefrostytruth
Thanks, pretty interesting to see that.

I wonder how Matt feels about getting feedback in this way, apart from the
open licensing. So many of the comments seem superficial (something a good
copyeditor might simply fix, later in the process). He seems to be a good
sport in responding, though.

And will his developmental editor at O'Reilly use this interface? Or can
public scrutiny stand in for editorial oversight, and the 'true' editing will
be minimal? Perhaps a new model for book publishers.

Is there a post mortem written anywhere by authors who have used a public
commenting feedback system like this (The Django Book, Real World Haskell,
among others)? I'm curious if it would be helpful or mostly annoying to
authors.

I wonder if the commenting system itself encourages trivial, nitpicky
corrections rather than big picture feedback.

~~~
mattetti
So far the feedback has been great. You are right a lot of comments are
'superficial' but they are still very helpful. Editors only come at the end of
a project and I was eager to share the book content with people interested.

My publisher is looking at the comments and they are helpful to reshape the
book's target and content.

It's also very encouraging as an author to see people interested in helping,
even if it's just to help you with your grammar.

\- Matt

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mattparcher
Especially relevant after recent news that Apple is working on bringing
MacRuby to iOS:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1684403>

Which is finally possible now that Apple has eased restrictions on development
tools and languages for iOS apps:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1675131>

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lurch_mojoff
This book is an awesome introduction to OS X programming for rubists. There is
one additional thing I'd like to see (in this book or in another) and that is
a good demonstration of hotcocoa, which hopefully will reinvigorate the
interest in and the development of it.

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crazydiamond
Will this book remain publicly accessible in future ?

I intend working on MacRuby in a while.

~~~
mattetti
Yes, we are going to publish the book once finished. You will still be able to
read it online in HTML tho.

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baxter
One of the things I really like about this book is that it covers
'method_missing' really early on. This is criticised in the comments, but I
don't think it's an especially difficult concept to understand.

~~~
ichverstehe
It is not difficult to understand. The trouble is, that it is very easy to
misuse.

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swaits
I work indirectly with Matt. Guy really knows his stuff. Looking forward to
diving into this book.

