
Book of Ruby Completed: 425 pages, 300+ Sample Programs, free - nickb
http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Book-of-Ruby-Completed-425-pages
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mattjaynes
Having just taken a quick look - it seems like a great effort.

The only thing that throws me off is the font choice for the code examples.
I'm no font-snob, but a monospace font for code just seems much more readable
and friendly to programmer readers.

Regardless of the font - very glad to see a great effort like this.

~~~
stephencelis
I'm more worried by the style guide. Just in the screenshot, I notice a lot of
oddities and inconsistencies:

    
    
      * Unnecessary parentheses abound
      * A camelCase preference over snake_case
      * And nocase ("myname")
      * Calling methods with "::" and "."
      * Curly braces instead of do..end for multiline, unchained blocks.
      * Curly braces that don't even begin to line up.
      * Strangely erratic whitespace (see parentheses)
    

Don't get me wrong, I love what you can do with Ruby, but this seems like a
confusing thing to throw at your readers.

~~~
petercooper
It worries me more that newbies who use this guide will start writing in this
very un-Rubyish way and then wonder why their code doesn't get used as much or
why they don't succeed at the job interviews.. There's an informal, but
popular, style for a reason. This is also why books (should) have technical
reviewers.

Consider the second example in chapter one that includes: _name=gets()_ .. No
true Rubyist codes that way. There's an example a couple of pages on that uses
_if .. then_. No-one really uses _then_ either. This is explained in the text,
but why show it if it's confusing and rarely used? And why methods like
_get_name_? That's not typical Ruby style either. It'd just be _name_.

That said, once you get beyond a chapter or two and ignore the quirky
stylings, it's not bad and certainly has some value. I know people who had
weird music teachers and learned how to play pretty well under them.. but they
had to go back and relearn basic breathing and fingering techniques due to the
way they were taught.

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carbon8
His explanation for breaking/ignoring conventions:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/8diqr/book_of_ruby_com...](http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/8diqr/book_of_ruby_completed_425_pages_300_sample/c08xzgb)

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ianbishop
I've began reading this book to patch any holes in my knowledge of ruby. My
only suggestion so far is that a new typeface for the code excerpts is needed.
Perhaps not necessarily courier (after reading his post on reddit) but ANY
other font. I mean really - anything but comic sans. It is widely abused in
the world to point where reading it gives me a head ache. Surprisingly enough,
I'm not the only one!

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quizbiz
Can anyone recommend a host (preferably free) where I can just mess around and
start learning?

~~~
jakewolf
localhost

