Ruby Pocket Reference

[John Joyce]

I picked up the new OREILLY book Ruby Pocket Reference today, by
Michael Fitzgerald.
I've got to say, it keeps with the high quality of almost every
Ruby / Rails book out there!
A nice little tomb that fits in your back pocket and actually has
things pretty well organized and answers those little things that you
might forget. It even has nice little glossary at the end. I highly
recommend this little friend for Ruby newbies!
(and Rails people, too!)
Sometimes it's easier and more convenient to use a little book like
this than 'ri' for everything.

Just can't understand why they put a giraffe on this one? Perl's
camel has become a big part of it's image, but there just hasn't yet
been an animal on a Ruby book that made sense.

 

[Alex Gutteridge]

Just can't understand why they put a giraffe on this one? Perl's
camel has become a big part of it's image, but there just hasn't
yet been an animal on a Ruby book that made sense.

AFAIK the Perl Camel originated from the 'Programming Perl' book. It
doesn't make any more (or less!) sense than a giraffe for Ruby!

Alex Gutteridge

Bioinformatics Center
Kyoto University

 

[Thomas Worm]

Just can't understand why they put a giraffe on this one? Perl's
camel has become a big part of it's image, but there just hasn't yet
been an animal on a Ruby book that made sense.

Because they put animals on almost every book. The "camel book" comes
from that as beeing a short reference to "Programming Perl" and not
because programming or perl has something got to do with camels. If they
would have put an eagle on it, "Programming Perl" would be known today as
the "eagle book". But they just put a camel on it like they put a giraffe
on the ruby book you mentioned. Just like that.

Thomas

 

[Xavier Noria]

Because they put animals on almost every book. The "camel book" comes
from that as beeing a short reference to "Programming Perl" and not
because programming or perl has something got to do with camels. If
they
would have put an eagle on it, "Programming Perl" would be known
today as
the "eagle book". But they just put a camel on it like they put a
giraffe
on the ruby book you mentioned. Just like that.

Indeed, the "eagle book" is the one about mod_perl, and the "llama
book" is "Learning Perl". Incidentally Ruby has the "Pickaxe" due to
the same reason, a pickaxe in the cover, though in this case you
usually don't append "book" when you refer to it.

-- fxn

 

[Karl von Laudermann]

Because they put animals on almost every book.

Since the item most associated with Ruby is a pickaxe (due to the book
Programming Ruby), the appropriate O'Reilly animal should be whatever
animal is known as "nature's pickaxe". I guess that's the giraffe. ;-)

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

But ruby already _has_ animals.
The cartoon foxes and blixie the cat.

 

[John Joyce]

No, I'm not that dense, I know OREILLY chooses random animals at
times, but sometimes they get a kind of them going with the animals
for a language. (camel, llama... )
Maybe it just seems that way... coincidental things...
Same guy's Learning Ruby book has the same giraffe with a baby one
too on the cover.
oh well, I was hoping there would be some more interesting info
behind this stuff.

Maybe my mind just sees patterns where there are none. I seriously
always visualize the cover of Programming Perl when I see or hear
'camel caps'/'camel case'. When I see the book cover, I think of
camel-case words...

 

[Todd Burch]

oh well, I was hoping there would be some more interesting info
behind this stuff.

Maybe my mind just sees patterns where there are none. I seriously
always visualize the cover of Programming Perl when I see or hear
'camel caps'/'camel case'. When I see the book cover, I think of
camel-case words...

I think we need to adopt Toto from The Wizard of Oz as the official Ruby
animal.

Todd

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

I think we need to adopt Toto from The Wizard of Oz as the official Ruby
animal.

Todd

Because we need more people thinking rubyists are hopeless dreamers,
living in la la land?

 

[Todd Burch]

Because we need more people thinking rubyists are hopeless dreamers,
living in la la land?

What's wrong with being a hopeless dreamer?

I could have gone nasty and said because Ruby performs like a dog, but I
didn't.

Toto was a cool dog. And, of course, that whole movie is about the Ruby
slippers.

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

I think the giraffes are what they've assigned to Ruby for some
reason. Doesn't "Learning Ruby" also have giraffes?

I think the cookbooks have dogs/wolves/dingos. So, what are they
trying to say? We have freakishly huge necks and the mange? JERKS.

--Jeremy

No, I'm not that dense, I know OREILLY chooses random animals at
times, but sometimes they get a kind of them going with the animals
for a language. (camel, llama... )
Maybe it just seems that way... coincidental things...
Same guy's Learning Ruby book has the same giraffe with a baby one
too on the cover.
oh well, I was hoping there would be some more interesting info
behind this stuff.

Maybe my mind just sees patterns where there are none. I seriously
always visualize the cover of Programming Perl when I see or hear
'camel caps'/'camel case'. When I see the book cover, I think of
camel-case words...

--
http://www.jeremymcanally.com/

My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[Kyle Schmitt]

I think the giraffes are what they've assigned to Ruby for some
reason. Doesn't "Learning Ruby" also have giraffes?

I think the cookbooks have dogs/wolves/dingos. So, what are they
trying to say? We have freakishly huge necks and the mange? JERKS.

--Jeremy

No, that our heads are in the clouds

 

[Todd Benson]

No, that our heads are in the clouds

No, that we have long reach.

Todd

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

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No, that we have long reach.

Todd

Stick your neck out! Learn Ruby!

<ducking>

Incidentally, another name for a giraffe is Cameleopard


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[Esmail]

I picked up the new OREILLY book Ruby Pocket Reference today, by Michael
Fitzgerald.
I've got to say, it keeps with the high quality of almost every Ruby /
Rails book out there!
A nice little tomb that fits in your back pocket and actually has things
pretty well organized and answers those little things that you might
forget. It even has nice little glossary at the end. I highly recommend
this little friend for Ruby newbies!

Thanks for posting this, I had not heard about this one. I'll have to
check it out.

Any idea how it compares with the "Ruby in a nutshell" O'Reilly Quick
Reference?

 

[Corey Jewett]

ok, so aside from the importance of the animal (!) .. what do folks
think
of the actual contents of this reference? Worth having? Accurate?

I, for one, am terribly disappointed in what appears to be a lack of
a digital version. I routinely use digital versions (PDF preferably)
of pocket guides for quick references.

Corey

 

[Jan Friedrich]

I think the giraffes are what they've assigned to Ruby for some
reason. Doesn't "Learning Ruby" also have giraffes?

I think the cookbooks have dogs/wolves/dingos. So, what are they
trying to say? We have freakishly huge necks and the mange? JERKS.

Not to forget the *billy goat* on Ruby in a Nutshell
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596002149.jpg

What say us this? scapegoat?

Regards
Jan

 

[John Joyce]

Ruby in a Nutshell is still interesting, but a bit out of date.

the pocket reference is just the thing to have around for quickie
lookups.
Pretty good little book.

 

[Esmail]

Ruby in a Nutshell is still interesting, but a bit out of date.

the pocket reference is just the thing to have around for quickie lookups.
Pretty good little book.

Great, thanks for the feedback!

I was hoping to hear from other experienced Ruby folks regarding this.
I kinda live in the boonies, so it will be difficult to take a look at
this book myself.

The Nutshell book is good indeed, but this one sounds rather promising
too. Maybe others who have seen both will chime in.

 

[Keith Fahlgren]

I, for one, am terribly disappointed in what appears to be a lack of
a digital version. I routinely use digital versions (PDF preferably)
of pocket guides for quick references.

Just wait a couple of weeks and it'll appear on oreilly.com, as they
wait a bit to publish the PDF version.


Keith