Learn to Program, 2nd Ed: A Book Review

May 16, 2009, 22:02 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by James Pyles)

"The first section of the Introduction showed me that author Chris Pine (as far as I know, no relation to the actor playing James Kirk in the current Star Trek film) is a person after my own heart. He compares the writing of instructions on making a PB&J sandwich to writing a computer program. One of my "issues" is writing good tutorials for the correct audience. The instructions on how to make a PB&J sandwich differ, depending on if your audience is a 5 year old child vs. a 35 year old adult, for instance. I heard something of my own "voice" in those particular paragraphs, as Pine outlined the set of instructions pretty much the same way I would.

"Pine almost immediately answered one of my questions (Why Ruby?) in the Introduction. The answer is completely pragmatic: "Ruby programs tend to be short". He compared the same task written in Java and Ruby. Ruby was just a little "blip" compared to the several lines of code Java required to do the same thing (print "Hello Word", as if that were inventive). In the "Getting Started" section, I ignored the instructions for installing a text editor and Ruby for Windows and Mac, and honed in on Linux. Easy stuff. Everything was already on my Ubuntu box. Time to move on to the first lesson."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Code Project: Create a web server in Ruby(Mar 24, 2009)
• Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts(Feb 07, 2009)
• Do Ruby on Rails Developers Need Merb?(Oct 17, 2008)
• Java vs Ruby: A Comparison of the Key Elements(Dec 14, 2007)
• Learning Ruby for Python's Sake?(Sep 10, 2007)
• Will Ruby Kill PHP?(Aug 17, 2007)
• Developer.com: Skip the CRUD: Building a Simple Database Backed Web Application Using Ruby on Rails(Feb 01, 2007)
• BobCares: Deploying Ruby on Rails(Mar 30, 2006)
• Linux Journal: Exploring Ruby on Rails(Apr 01, 2005)
• ONLamp: Rolling with Ruby on Rails(Jan 24, 2005)
• OSNews: Introduction to Rubyx Linux(Oct 13, 2004)