Looking for book reviewers

[Dave Thomas]

Hi, all.

Chris Pine is just finishing off the first draft of his "Learn to
Program with Ruby" book (based on his incredibly successful web
series), and I'm looking for reviewers.

However, before you all rush to sign up, there's a catch. I'm really
looking for folks who are the book's target audience: folks with
little or no programming experience who want to learn how to code.
They'll probably be from mid teens on up, curious, and happy to give
honest feedback as they go through the book.

So, if you know someone like that, and if they'd be interested in
participating, have them drop me a line ([email protected]).

Thanks a lot


Dave

 

[pat eyler]

Dave,
I think I sort of fit this. My 11.5 y.o. son is ready to step past HTML,
and I've been wondering how to get him going with Ruby (we've already
had a couple of discussions and he seems to 'get it'). I'd love to work
with him on Chris' book.

Of course, if this doesn't fit your model, we'll just have to buy a copy wh=
en
it comes out.

-pate

 

[pat eyler]

doh! I hate hitting the send button before adjusting the To: line.

 

[Dave Thomas]

However, before you all rush to sign up, there's a catch. I'm
really looking for folks who are the book's target audience: folks
with little or no programming experience who want to learn how to
code. They'll probably be from mid teens on up, curious, and happy
to give honest feedback as they go through the book.

Oh, one more thing just occurred to me. If you're nominating someone
under 13, please don't have them e-mail me directly. Instead, I'll
need a parent or guardian to make the introduction.


Thanks


Dave

 

[Ryan Leavengood]

doh! I hate hitting the send button before adjusting the To: line.

I personally liked hearing about a young potential new Rubyist.
Starting at 11 he could be quite a formidable Ruby programmer by the
time he graduated high school.

Ryan

 

[Ron M]

When I try to define this function with a syntax error in
the regular expression, ruby sometimes segfaults.
I'm using "ruby 1.8.3 (2005-05-12) [i686-linux]".

The obvious/easy workaround is to not have the syntax
error in the regexp but I just figured I'd report
the less than perfect failure mode.



====================================================================================
irb(main):012:0*
irb(main):013:0*
irb(main):014:0* def ascleanstr(v)
(v.class==String && v=~/\A\s*\Z/) ? nil :
(v.class==Array && v[0].class==Fixnum) ? v.pack("C*").unpack("H*")[0] :
v = v.to_s.strip.gsub(/\r/,"")
v =~ v.length>3 && /\A[A-Z\#0-9 _\t\-\/(\)]*\Z\/ ?
v.split(/[\t _]+/).map{|w| w=~/\d/ ? w : w.capitalize}.join(" ") :
v
end

irb(main):015:1> irb(main):016:1* irb(main):017:1* irb(main):018:1> irb(main):019:1/ irb(main):020:0* (irb):19: warning: invalid character syntax; use ?\\
s
SyntaxError: compile error
(irb):19: premature end of regular expression: /\A[A-Z\#0-9 _\t\-\/(\)]*\Z\/ ?
v.split(/
(irb):19: syntax error
v.split(/[\t _]+/).map{|w| w=~/\d/ ? w : w.capitalize}.join(" ") :
^
(irb):19: unmatched ): /).map{|w| w=~/
(irb):19: syntax error
v.split(/[\t _]+/).map{|w| w=~/\d/ ? w : w.capitalize}.join(" ") :
^
(irb):19: syntax error
v.split(/[\t _]+/).map{|w| w=~/\d/ ? w : w.capitalize}.join(" ") :
^
(irb):19: syntax error
from (irb):20
from ^C:0
irb(main):021:0> SyntaxError: compile error
(irb):21: syntax error
from (irb):21
from ^C:0
irb(main):022:0> irb(main):023:0* def ascleanstr(v)
(v.class==String && v=~/\A\s*\Z/) ? nil :
(v.class==Array && v[0].class==Fixnum) ? v.pack("C*").unpack("H*")[0] :
v = v.to_s.strip.gsub(/\r/,"")
v =~ v.length>3 && /\A[A-Z\#0-9 _\t\-\/(\)]*\Z\/ ?
v.split(/[\t _]+/).map{|w| w=~/\d/ ? w : w.capitalize}.join(" ") :
v
end

free(): invalid pointer 0x8186ac0!
free(): invalid pointer 0x817a7d0!
free(): invalid pointer 0x8182bf8!
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:285: [BUG] Segmentation fault
ruby 1.8.3 (2005-05-12) [i686-linux]

Abort
greenie import/denton> ruby -version
ruby 1.8.3 (2005-05-12) [i686-linux]
-e:1: undefined local variable or method `rsion' for main:Object (NameError)
greenie import/denton>

 

[rwestcot]

I think you're talking about me! Ruby is my first programing language
ever. My boyfriend is a programmer-type, and when I showed an interest
he pointed me towards Chris Pine's tutorial online. I haven't done much
lately, as I'm back at school, but I keep meaning to, and this would be
a good reason to get back to it.

 

[nobu.nokada]

Hi,

I've missed your article until it'd happend to be discovered,
because you posted it as a reply to an unrelated thread.

At Wed, 5 Oct 2005 02:56:10 +0900,
Ron M wrote in [ruby-talk:159019]:

When I try to define this function with a syntax error in
the regular expression, ruby sometimes segfaults.
I'm using "ruby 1.8.3 (2005-05-12) [i686-linux]".

It might be:

date: 2005-05-23 12:24:28 +0900; author: matz; state: Exp; lines: +2 -1
* re.c (make_regexp): should not return junk address during
compile time. [ruby-dev:26206]

 

[billotte]

Hi Dave,

I picked up the Pragmatic Programmer some years ago simply because it
had a wood plane on the cover( I knew how to use a tablesaw and a
router well before a debugger). I now manage a team of 6 rookie
programmers who I have run through a course that I based on the
Pragmatic Programmer.

I've been using Ruby more and more for daily tasks (replacing Perl) and
have been, in general, working to get it more accepted and used where I
work.

While most on my team may now claim having 6-9 months of "real"
experience, they are still pretty young, so we might be a good
candidate group for you. If you're going for the level of the
Deitel&Deitel books ( C How to Program, etc ), while excellent
books!!!, that is definately more elementary than where we're at. If
that's the case you could kick us a Rails book though. I would bet that
one in our office would get 10 more bought in a hand full of months.

I'd also be more than happy to subject my team to any type of
ruby/rails experiment that we could dream up. Maybe something like
subject 6 rookie programmers to a new language and then get their take
on how they felt about it.

We're the content engineering team at simplyhired.com.

cheers,
Daniel