What books to buy?

[Paul Lynch]

There is a sound reason for this:

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/01/=20
your_users_brai.html

Pr=E9cis: tutorials should be written in a conversational, rather than =20=

a "formal" style.

One thing from this article that surprised me: "Most importantly, =20
ignore the advice your high school writing teacher gave you--that you =20=

must never "write the way you talk."" Funny, the advice MY high =20
school teacher gave me was to always write the way that I talk. Must =20=

be a difference between the American public school system and the =20
British "public" school system.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/10/=20
words_pictures_.html

My personal reinterpretation of this: tutorial information should be =20
conveyed in multiple media for best comprehension. Words and =20
pictures to illustrate every concept is the example in the article, =20
but I'd expand it to ALL media; the more the merrier.

Moving on from that, both articles are fine sources of information =20
which I thoroughly agree with. However, they don't apply to the =20
criticisms quoted above. The Head First books do not use a normal =20
conversational style - they descend into a "jive talk" version of =20
English, which certainly isn't how I, or anyone else I know, talks.

Secondly, illustrations are fine. In fact, they are excellent. But =20
take a look at the proportion of "silly pictures", mostly faked up =20
photos of people in 50s style clothes, that don't actually apply to =20
any of the points being made. Irrelevant pictures don't count; they =20
just bulk out the page count, and, frankly, I'd far rather a slim =20
tutorial book than a fat one that covers exactly the same ground.

"Head First" books make little sense if you are already an expert =20
in the field but when you try to learn something new the age, =20
professional status and college degree just doesn't matter - we all =20=

have legacy brains.

I have no idea what you think you mean by "legacy brains" - but we =20
sure all learn the same way. My criticism is that the Head First =20
house style is aimed at some notion of how a teenager talks and =20
behaves, which doesn't correspond to reality, and doesn't work =20
outside of that notional teenagers cultural background. Furthermore, =20=

it gets in the way of the typical post-college user, because it poses =20=

exactly the same barriers against assimilation as Kathy rails against =20=

in Sun's formal reference books.

As Kathy says in one of the articles, just because the authors of a =20
book were responsible for Microsoft Bob doesn't mean that their ideas =20=

are bad .

However, this is off-topic already, so I'll stop here

This isn't really off-topic: the disparaging of Head First was made =20
in parallel with some expressed desires to improve Chris Pine's =20
introductory work, and the two topic cross over. "Learning to =20
Program" needs exactly the improvements that Kathy is talking about, =20
as it lack illustration, examples and exercises (as well as more =20
detailed criticisms that can be made of the flow and the programming =20
style used) - but the world doesn't need a "Head First Ruby".

Paul=

 

[Syam Pra]

I would suggest that you try the following Freely available books before
typing your CCV.

http://pspxworld.com/BOOK/PROGRAMMING/RUBY.php

 

[Richard Conroy]

Thank you all for such wonderful advice!

My background is basically just simple shell scripting.

I wish to avoid PDF because I don't want to hurt my eyes too much.

I have that problem too.

So anyway, how come nobody mentioned O'Reilly?
I thought they were good at it!

Well the Ruby Cookbook is a great book for when you just need to get stuff =
done,
but the nature of book writing for Ruby is that there are a couple of
great texts
like the Pickaxe, Ruby for Rails etc. and they have run away with the minds=
hare.