Comments on: The Sadly Neglected Pickaxe-killer

By: moonshine

moonshine — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:27:10 +0000

I’m halfway through R4R at the moment and am not so impressed, having read the pickaxe many years ago (and re-read recently) and currently also reading AWDwR 2nd ed I’ve feel that David just hasn’t added that much to my knowledge base, yet. Granted I’m allready familiar with oop (lot’s of java at institutions) and the last 6months I’ve been coding PHP using codeigniter so MVC is second nature (though the more familiar i am with rails the better my php seems to become)…. but i’ll wait till i get to the much raved bout 13th chapter before i pass final judgement

I still think the pickaxe is a better ruby primer though (IMHO).

By: John Joyce

John Joyce — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:20:37 +0000

Just bought R4R, been eyeballing it in the bookstore for months. Love it.
The pickaxe is nice, but V2 has that huge reference section for the last half of it. Sorry, I just don’t like to carry around big heavy books anymore. It’s stupid.
(as for the pick axe, uh, duh rhubarb dude, it’s “Ruby” you mine it, one method to mine for something by yourself is with a pickaxe…)

By: rhubarb

rhubarb — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:04:07 +0000

BTW: Note that the Pickaxe predates R4R by a long way- and is the first good book on Ruby and one of the first 2 or 3 to exist, which is why it’s better known.

Also note that Pickaxe comes from the fact that the cover has a pickaxe on it - fairly random I think.
This follows the O’Reilly tradition: they put totally random animals on the covers, and often the books become known by the cover picture. I think that “the camel book” (for Perl4) is the canonical - if not original - example of this.

By: rhubarb

rhubarb — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:57:38 +0000

Yes. And one place R4R really shines is in the chapter that describes how “self” works.
I’ve never seen this properly described in any other place, neither book, nor blog.

By: peter

peter — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:05:04 +0000

@Pat: Could you tell us which is the third one? If we are talking about Rails, too, then I am quite sure it is AWDwR, but if strictly Ruby, then I am wondering (Ruby Cookbook anyone?)
You are absolutely right wrt the Ruby Way… In short: yes, extend your list to 4 books

@Bob: Well, if you really have a solid grasp, then maybe you should check out the Ruby cookbook instead to pick up some Ruby slang & idioms… though this book was so well written that I think it is still worth a read nevertheless.

By: Bob Aman

Bob Aman — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:31:51 +0000

R4R is one of the few Ruby books I don’t have. Mainly because by the time it got around to being published, I already felt like I had a pretty solid handle on Ruby, and more importantly, because my interest in Rails had dropped significantly. Is it still a good book for someone who already knows Ruby quite well, and who doesn’t really use Rails anymore? (Well, except for with freelance work… customer is always right.)

By: MikeInAZ

MikeInAZ — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:11:30 +0000

I’m a fairly newcomer to Rails/Ruby and feel the same about the Ruby4Rails book. It’s not too fast and not too slow…just a perfect book.

By: Pat Eyler

Pat Eyler — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:47:32 +0000

Nice little review of a really good book. I agree with you that Ruby for Rails is poised to be a pick-axe killer as the introductory book. The two books are really quite complimentary though. Currently, they both sit in my list of three Ruby books every Ruby hacker should have. My big concern is what I’ll do in November when the 2nd edition of The Ruby Way comes out … make it a list of four?