3 Copies of “Troubleshooting Ruby Processes” To Win
Troubleshooting Ruby Processes is a "digital short cut" (i.e. an e-book) written by Philippe Hanrigou and published by Addison Wesley. Unlike most Ruby books, my own included, this one really digs into its topic and looks quite low down at how Ruby processes interact with the operating system. While some of the topics are deep, however, the book is only 56 pages long, so it's a useful book to read to learn why problems occur and which tools to solve the problem, even if you're not going to be able to write a dissertation about it. Tammer Saleh of Thoughtbot wrote a review if you want to learn more.
In collaboration with Addison Wesley we're offering three copies of Troubleshooting Ruby Processes to win in a Ruby Inside contest. To enter, post a comment here with an explanation / example of the sort of Ruby book(s) you'd like to see published in the future. No idea is too crazy. Three commenters who provide the most worthwhile or interesting ideas, along with an e-mail address in the relevant field, will be chosen at random to receive a copy of the PDF. And, no, Addison Wesley didn't suggest this topic for market research or the like.. I'm personally interested to see what people want and, you never know, it might get me writing..!
Note that e-mail addresses provided in the "e-mail" field on Ruby Inside comments are not published, not given to anyone, and, well, not really used at all, except for me being able to get in touch with you. That said, if you like you can use a temporary address!
For completists, the topics covered in Troubleshooting Ruby Processes are shown in this shot of the contents:
Note that if you're a member of the Safari book subscription site, the short cut is available to read there with your existing subscription.
Another Contest!
Finally, if contests are your thing right now, check out Pat Eyler's contest to win any three Apress books of your choice! Currently there's only one entry, so you're in with a good chance, and you have until Christmas to enter.
December 3, 2007 at 12:27 am
A book on how to help Ruby and Ruby on Rails, submitting patches, monkey-patching code and so on.
December 3, 2007 at 12:37 am
I'd love a book which surveyed the history of language features in Ruby inspired or copied from languages as LISP, Smaltalk, Perl, etc. Like going back to the roots and discuss why they was chosen and why it's implemented in a particular way in Ruby. Are we missing certain things these languages have to offer in Ruby? How does these choices relate to code beauty and programmer happiness?
December 3, 2007 at 12:40 am
I'd love to see a book on Capistrano 2! Especially how it can fit into existing infrastructure (php/mysql/subversion) while allowing new projects to be rails/camping/nitro/sinatra based.
Have a list of things you need from the infrastructure/server admin team as a minimum, and list things that would be nice to have.
Also stats on avg requests per second etc. for rails would be great to show a boss! Maybe even with some examples of how businesses have used rails and the benefits of it over existing frameworks.
A Suggested title: Ruby in the Enterprise. Why it is right for you.
December 3, 2007 at 12:53 am
I'd really like to see a book about performance testing and monitoring with respect to Rails and Ruby apps. At Rapleaf, we find ourselves spending a lot of time just trying to figure out what is actually going on inside our codebase when things are getting slowed down randomly. Knowing where Rails spends its time would be an invaluable bit of knowledge.
In that same context, some basic solutions to common performance issues would be fantastic.
December 3, 2007 at 1:13 am
Would like to see a sort of desktop Ruby books, just like we could find for Java.
If You don't get the point, try here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/desktopjava/community/books/index.html
From an almost client-server developer view point.
Learning a language into three steps:
1 - Academical (the language itself)
2 - Practical (desktop graphical useful application)
3 - Actual (internet)
I think the second step book is missing
December 3, 2007 at 1:14 am
A book that talks about the Ruby internals. How the language is implemented and what defines Ruby as a language. With all the work being done implementing ruby on top of various VM's (JVM, Rubinius, YARV, .NET CLR), a book that explains how one goes about doing something like would be very very helpful.
I would also really like to see information on how to approach different problem domains in Ruby. For instance, scientific programming. There are quite a few bindings to different scientific libraries that would be very useful to learn.
Next, there's always room for a DSL book. Something that wouldn't just show how to implement DSL's in ruby, but that also explains the logic and rationale that go into creating a good DSL. How to break a problem domain into a usable vocabulary. How to easily extend that vocabulary. Also, some time should be spent on discussing external DSL's as well. Things like implementing parsers, preprocessors, and the like.
Finally, I would really really love to see a book discussing artificial intelligence and natural language processing in Ruby. We have some very neat libraries out there that would serve as a good starting point for an AI book. AI is becoming more and more relevant to many different fields/domains. A comprehensive book on the subject would help rubyists and rails-focused developers alike.
December 3, 2007 at 1:28 am
I think a really useful book would be one focusing on GUI development using Ruby and clearly dealing with operating system bits where required. The type of book could be one massive volume incorporating the basic stuff, assuming no previous experience with GUI programming then delving into the nitty gritty of GUI stuff.
December 3, 2007 at 1:33 am
I book about Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and how Ruby can be the basis for your own would be high on my wish list. Ruby is a very dynamic language; developers coming from other languages can't always grasp the seemingly absurd runtime dyamics of Ruby. Hence a book about Ruby metaprogramming and how that supports DSLs would be very interesting.
I'm predicting that DSLs will be very, very big in a couple of years - there will be a whole lot of DSLs based upon the jargon used in specific industries; a DSL for healthcare, a DSL for the gaming industry, a DSL for the finance industry - each of which provides a large jump in productivity because the nomenclature using in development and in business could be similar. A book to help move the world in this regard may be very prophetic and successful.
December 3, 2007 at 1:39 am
A book about Ruby and unit testing.
December 3, 2007 at 1:39 am
I really want to see a book on integrating JRuby into existing J2EE applications. I was hoping Ola Bini's recent JRuby book would fill the bill, but while it was a great introduction to JRuby, it stopped far short of showing how best to integrate JRuby and especially JRuby on Rails into existing applications. I have deployed my first JRuby/Rails app on our crappy legacy application server (Oracle's e-Business bundled app server: Worst*AppServer*Ever), however I'm a bit worried about deploying JRuby into existing applications without a bit more guidance. Maybe somebody can convince Ola to write volume 2?
December 3, 2007 at 2:11 am
Maybe a more philosophical book on what makes Ruby 'Ruby'. I love The Ruby Way, but maybe it is too big for starters. I also just wrote at my blog about the way Smalltalk doesn't need an imperative 'if' and how can I emulate that in Ruby using messages. I always think of Ruby as something like: class Ruby
December 3, 2007 at 2:18 am
I'd like to see a book on third party libraries. I was going to say one focusing on GUIs, but someone has already said that. I think a book focusing on some rubygems would be cool though. Make people aware of what's available in the system, and go over how to use some of them.
December 3, 2007 at 2:25 am
I'd love to see more books about moving up from beginner-level to advanced-level Ruby. The recipe-style format could be good for this type of book, but I'd like to see longer recipes than what we're used to from O'Reilly or the Pragmatic Programmers.
Short recipes teach great tricks but they don't get new programmers in the mindset of writing an application. Long reference books get bogged down in details. I'd like something in between. One recipe could be a full application, or at least a prototype, rather than a snippet. It would be more engaging for someone who wants to advance their skills.
For example, you could start with something fun like building a Rogue-like game in Ruby. (For some reason, such games are still rare in our gem of a language...) This "recipe" could be 50 pages on its own to build a good functional prototype.
Then, you could move onto something like a system administration package, perhaps generating statistics about current performance with a graphical toolkit. A good opportunity for threading, processes, and IO.
Then, maybe a Ruby development toolkit like a testing or deployment helper. A great opportunity for metaprogramming.
Another important point is that all the examples be functional. They have to be something everyone uses or it's not encouraging enough for someone getting into the language. Everyone plays games, everyone administers at least their own system, everyone (in the target audience) uses development toolkits of some form.
December 3, 2007 at 2:26 am
Ruby is a powerful language. It gives freedom to programmers. But that freedom can be really tricky, specially if you have no experience with dynamic languages and don't know how to use it wisely.
We hear a lot about design patterns, but usually associated to languages like Java. Many of the popular patterns are really trivial to implement in Ruby and some other doesn't even make sense but there are many that still useful to use in in a Ruby or Rails application.
There are also some others more Ruby-centric patterns being created and used by many people everyday, creating DSL and exploring the Ruby dynamic behavior.
A Ruby book containing design and architectural patterns and anti-patterns - written in Ruby - would be really neat. Specially for the new rubyists who are trying to learn Ruby best practices.
December 3, 2007 at 2:31 am
A book a NT system administration using Ruby, .NET development using IronRuby, the history of Ruby (lots of Matz's interviews are quite enjoyable to read), using Ruby for testing of Windows applications (UI automation), UI development using Ruby, a book focused on contributing to the Ruby community (creating plugins, gems, etc), a collection of the best writings (from blogs) on Ruby (ala Joel's "best of" book), a DVD of all the peepcode videos, a book about Rake, a title that explains how to embed Ruby into existing applications. Coverage of writing mashups (google maps, flickr, facebook, etc) with Ruby.
A title that covers the whole end-to-end process for software development using Ruby - not the development of the software but the processes (i.e. configuration and deployment of mongrol, nginx, cap, etc; git/svn; basecamp; etc).
Web development using sass and haml.
More books that dive deep into narrow areas (such as the new Active Record title).
More books that use Ruby as the supporting language (i.e. a patterns book that uses Ruby as the language of choice).
December 3, 2007 at 2:32 am
A book on building accessible websites using Ruby On Rails, specifically focused on using unobtrusive JavaScript to augment "vanilla" websites with ajax goodness in a Ruby On Rails context.
December 3, 2007 at 2:52 am
A book about using Ruby as an extension language (i.e. to embed it onto a game engine, similar to Python used on Blender).
A book about Ruby applied to all sorts of math.
A scifi book where Ruby is used (hah!).
December 3, 2007 at 2:57 am
Excellent ideas so far, really enjoying reading these!
@AkitaOnRails: I've actually been considering doing a book somewhat like that under the Ruby Inside banner. It would require the cooperation of a whole ton of people to be really good though.
December 3, 2007 at 3:09 am
@Joe: Practical Ruby Gems is a commonly overlooked book in that vein. It's a good book, although the obvious downside is that it goes out of date quicker than language-level books, perhaps, unless updates are made each year. Great for dipping your toes into a bunch of libraries though.
December 3, 2007 at 3:40 am
First, I concur that a book covering the why's and how's of dsl's would be very cool. Beyond that, I think Ruby has a lot to offer in the field of network programming. From using event machine to make async servers, to web scraping, the ruby network libraries are becomming ever more robust. There is even a cool XMPP library that makes interfacing with jabber servers down right fun. Add in the fact the most Rails developers will one day want (or need) to mess with their own Mongrel handlers, there is a lot to cover in the network programming space.
For added fun, add a chapter on dsl's for the implementation of the protocol layer, something snazzy like:
listen for :swearing say { |channel| 'potty-mouth' }
:)
December 3, 2007 at 3:49 am
I think there's currently a great amount of technical Ruby (and Rails) books out there to keep many happy. What I would love to see is a nice compilation of opinions, stories and any other rants and raves by some of the big names in the the Ruby (and Rails) world.
Aside from a book along those lines I would love to see a book on how to appropriately and effectively utilize Ruby for a variety of business applications. I think there's a big market of hobby Ruby developers who would love to work with Ruby in their line of work but they don't know how to approach their management or peers with the ideas. Many of the people I know (including myself) have used the "develop a small chunk of code under radar and risk the consequences later and hope management and co-workers enjoy the efficiency and elegance of the language" approach.
Thanks!
December 3, 2007 at 3:51 am
I would read any of these books
The Ruby guide for web scraping and spiders.
Build crawling scraping spiders with Ruby
Crawl and Grab it using Ruby
Web Extraction practices using Ruby
Web Mining with Ruby
December 3, 2007 at 5:25 am
I would like to see a book about 300 pages, aimed at experienced programmers. With the first 100 pages devoted to an overview of the syntax, control structures, etc. And the last 200 pages devoted to advanced features such as meta programming, etc.
In other words, a book that assumes the reader already knows what is a class, inheritance, polymorphism, etc. Every time I pick up a book on a new language I see a fair amount of the book is spent on defining these fundamental ideas, which is boring. I would like to see a book that skips these topics and right on focuses on the language and then advanced topics in the language.
December 3, 2007 at 5:48 am
A book (or a series) on "Moving from X to Ruby in the Enterprise". One of my challenges is to create a RoR application to first augment but ultimately replace a Delphi app that is a frontend for a DB2 database.
Migrations scare the heck out of me (so far) when dealing with existing tables. Sure look like a fabulous idea when you have a blank page to work with, but not all of us are starting from scratch and things look a lot different when your schema is sitting there fighting back at you. Not every table (in fact, no table in my environment) has a single column called "ID" as its primary key.
A runner up idea would be OSX development using Ruby and DB2. There are lots of DB2 ideas out there, and plenty of OSX ideas, but my first hurdle was to figure out how to connect the two together. I eventually did it using JRuby and JDBC but not sure if that was the best or most appropriate way.
December 3, 2007 at 5:56 am
I'd like to see two kinds of Ruby books:
1) The Ruby internals idea, just as CptOatmeal describes it, is pretty interesting. This is a poorly understood domain that could use more smart helpers - we all want Ruby to climb in the Alioth shootout rankings, right? :)
2) Ruby for GUIs, preferrably inlcuding cross platform. For example let's write a NetFlix client (or something comparable) with WxRuby. Bonus for a couple of extra chapters on using RubyCocoa + XCode, and then IronRuby + VS, to get at some native features that WxWindows might not support right now. I don't know where the demand for this type of book is exactly; I suspect that RubyCocoa addresses a pain point (ObjC) that IronRuby doesn't (C#).
December 3, 2007 at 6:42 am
Book on (web) testing automation with Ruby. Also covering website scraping in detail. I would love that.
December 3, 2007 at 7:16 am
I would like to see a book called 'Everday Ruby' which aims to convert those who still use perl or bash for their goto when it comes to everyday scripts, admin tools.. then gets into detail about utilizing ruby and leveraging it against your existing tool/skill set. For example, Ruby injections, Ruby w/ Applescript and GUI toolkits. Heck yeah.
December 3, 2007 at 8:33 am
Hi,
1) it has been mentioned before in the comments, I would also like to see a book on professional jruby development and jee integration.
This book should show how proper security is achieved, internationalization, localization, good examples about RESTful development, adding RESTful webservices, and proper testing.
While the Agile book is great, and I as a beginner I enjoyed the depot application, I would have appreciated if there just a few more pages addressing the topics above. For example Testing should have been presented while the app was being developed and not in a successive chapter where it says "well testing should have been done alongside the development of the depot app" - well, why wasnt it?
2) a nice book with ruby gui development gnome/gtk or Jruby/Swing would also be nice
December 3, 2007 at 8:50 am
I'm looking for a book that explain me what is going on when i run ruby, but i think this book will cover a lot about it, so you've made a wonderful work!
December 3, 2007 at 9:14 am
I would love to see a book on using Ruby as a replacement for Applescript on Mac Os X Leopard. It could also dive into application development with Ruby Cocoa.
December 3, 2007 at 9:21 am
As the topic of Programming Languages gets more and more interesting to everyone, with incumbents being replaced with opensource alternatives, my point is that a beautiful integration of several programming languages is the future to programming web sites.
I would like to see a book on techniques and idioms to make these several programming languages work in the same application in the best manner.
For example, in my JavaScript files, I include a comment at the top like this:
/*ruby*
include_script "arrays.js"
include_script "utils.js"
include_script "scrolling.js"
include_script "scrolling2.js"
*/
which when detected by ruby, is eval()uated, thus providing a dependency-tracking system for my javascripts. Serialization of objects in ruby and deserialization in Java, or serialization of C structs and deserialization in Java, programming Ruby-bindings for C libraries, integrating a ruby-interpreter (or perl or whatever) in a C program, etc, etc.... this is very hot stuff under my POV...
December 3, 2007 at 10:24 am
A book dealing with ruby internals, sort of a guide to read the source code.
It would be interesting if it compared various implementations of ruby (at least taking JRuby into consideration).
December 3, 2007 at 11:25 am
'MetaProgramming in Ruby: unveil the dark power!'
A book about the feature everyone has started with Rails and then fall-back to Ruby may not know: metaprogramming. This could be defined the most diffcult yet powerful Ruby resource and if well controlled could lead to impressive (and dark? :) powers !
December 3, 2007 at 11:33 am
A book about cross-platform Ruby UI toolkits would be nice. How to properly run a modern-looking Ruby UI application on Linux, Windows and OS X? Or how to design an application to use the native toolkit (Cocoa, gtk+, etc.) on the platforms with minimal code changes.
December 3, 2007 at 11:42 am
I want to see a Ruby book that puts all aspects of enterprise development together under one title. When I say everything, I mean from startup (getting rails into svn, etc.), to working on the application's specs (integrating Fitnesse with Ruby?), to BDD (rspec?), code coverage analysis, automated builds (integrate Ruby with CruiseControl), advanced development topics and integration strategies (SOAP, XML-RPC, REST ... but not just a simple howto ... also security, performance testing, load testing, etc.) and deployment (Capistrano?)
Obviously this title couldn't go too deep into any one subject, but it could give one clear way of doing things with references to other titles / blog posts to guide the reader to a deeper understanding of each sub-topic.
In my mind, it would be similar to Mike Gunderloy's "Coder to Developer" book but focused on Ruby and going a bit deeper in each sub-topic.
There is a lot of great information out there today about each of these topics but for someone just starting out using Ruby and needing to become proficient very quickly such as in a large enterprise environment this would be a huge benefit IMO.
December 3, 2007 at 12:07 pm
1. "Implementing DSLs in Ruby" - this is non-trivial and and I consider this the Ruby killer-app - e.g. Rails is just a set of DSLs after all right?
2. "JRuby in Action" - similar to Groovy in Action
December 3, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I'd really like to see a book dedicated exclusibly to ruby & rails testing.
Even though there is a lot of good tutorials on how to use the different test frameworks, y find myself cluelss about what and where to test different parts of my application.
December 3, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Here's 2:
1)I'd like to see a book really digging apart the rails code-base and explaining how exactly what is going on behind the scenes. Basically it would be like an advanced "Ruby For Rails".
2) Building a Web Server to Host Rails. The book would basically start with shell access to a completely bare linux server (no mail server, no apache, no nginx, mysql, etc.) And walk through everything it takes to setup the server to host a modern rails app (nginx, etc.) Later chapters could include moving the db to a separate server and other performance modifications.
December 3, 2007 at 3:54 pm
First of all I'd like to see a BDD mini-book that fully covers RSpec and the mentality of behavior driven development (as it applies to Ruby or otherwise). I'd buy that.
Of course, a performance optimization book would be excellent as well, particularly for scaling Rails applications (although I realize that that Ezra's deploying Rails book is in beta and will be out soon, I sadly have yet to purchase the beta book!)
I also agree with (many others apparently) that "Writing DSLs with Ruby" would be a great book topic as well.
December 3, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I'd like to see a book totally dedicated BDD (behavior driven development) and its implementation in rspec. As far as I know, there isnt anything like that in the stores right now.
December 3, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I want a book introducing ruby to nonprogrammers who don't particularly want to become programmers. Where I work (NASA DEVELOP), data processing is pretty much a constant need. Consequently the programmers are pretty well overextended and projects are held up until code can be written. Most of the tasks aren't very complex and are just a few steps away from things that can be done in a spreadsheet. Talking with other nonprogrammers about repetitive tasks that they have to do, it becomes apparent sthat much of it could be easily automated; these people know what they want done (they are doing it manually) but just don't know how to make it happen.
I feel that a large section of nonprogrammers would benefit from a simple introduction to getting things done or processing data with simple ruby. Ruby is idiomatic enough that I think it would be quite doable.
December 3, 2007 at 7:18 pm
@Ben: So.. like a more technical, cookbooky "Learn to Program" by Chris Pine?
Actually, there's a sys admin book that's somewhat like that.. Practical Ruby for System Administration.. and a similar one for biologists. Perhaps similar books for other lines of work would be good.
December 3, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I'd like to see a book that presents Rails application development processes in a more straightforward way than either of the tutorials that run through the "Agile Web Development with Rails" and "Ruby for Rails" books.
As Victor Kane states on his excellent website (http://wiki.awebfactory.com.ar/awebfactory/published/HomePage), the AWDWR tutorial tends to meander through Rails app creation, Ajax, migrations and testing in a way that makes sense for teaching newcomers about all the features of the Rails framework, but isn't a process you could then follow when designing and constructing your own Rails apps.
After diligently working through building the sample apps in both books, I'm now struggling to extrapolate the process to my own application. When do I create the models? When do I create the unit tests? I suppose this is obvious to developers experienced in web app development with other MVC frameworks, but I'm still waiting for the penny to drop!
December 3, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Hi!
I'd love to read "Data structures & algorithms in Ruby". It wouldn't even be that hard to write -- you could read one of the many Java/C books out there for inspiration.
"Data structures & algorithms in Ruby" could also be used in an academic setting, thus sneaking Ruby through the system ...
Alternatively, a Ruby version of "Programming Collective Intelligence" would be nice. Perhaps this would be something like a "Best of RubyGems" cookbook. Or maybe how to solve interesting & challenging (mainly mathematical) problems in Ruby.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Building-Applications/dp/0596529325/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196714742&sr=8-1
December 3, 2007 at 9:12 pm
@Peter Cooper: I suppose what I want is a working implementation of DWIM (Do What I Mean). Those books look something like what I would want, especially the latter one. But the essential thing is just something that a nonprogrammer can open and within a few pages see where it could come into play in their daily work. Maybe in the process provide a DSL.
I think my dream would be for KOffice to stop sucking, go completely crossplatform, and offer a really robust scripting API (all look like they will happen). Then people can use spreadsheets like normal and process special cases with a scripting language that doesn't suck (VBA is the root of all evil). A book could then tie in with all of this to offer practical solutions at hand.
Hooray for dreams I suppose.
December 3, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Interesting Tidbit: There are currently 85 books out there covering ruby/rails topics. That's certainly a lot more than I had thought.
December 4, 2007 at 2:20 am
I would like to see an Advanced Programming Ruby. Combining blogs along with great books like The Ruby Way and Programming Ruby, etc you can get advanced Ruby topics, but it takes some work. I find all the books on Ruby to date to lack detailed coverage of class_eval, instance_eval, module_eval, const_missing, method_missing, Proc, lambda, etc. These get mentioned, but not in great detail. Many of these are critical to meta-programing, Ruby DSL's, etc. I know there is an Oreilly book coming to replace the Ruby In a Nutshell, called The Ruby Programming Language; However, I think this may do some of those justice, but not from an advanced perspective.
December 4, 2007 at 2:27 am
I'd would love to see a book dedicated to Ruby application development using platform specific techniques, such as Ruby Cocoa.
It would cover the development of a desktop application in Ruby from soup to nuts. From building the interface using Interface Builder, hooking into the generated nib file and using as many of the Apple frameworks as possible from Ruby (Core Foundation, Core Data, Core Animation, Core Image, Core Video, OpenGL, Quartz, Web Kit, Bonjour, Calendar Store, Quick Look, Instant Messaging Framework/iChat Theater, etc).
Actually, the book may need to use several desktop applications to show off Ruby integration with all of these services. But with the large number of Mac users in the Ruby community, I think this book would have an excellent chance.
December 4, 2007 at 8:37 am
I would like to read a book about RubyCocoa. Maybe "Agile Desktop Development with RubyCocoa" :). Using Ruby instead of AppleScript would also be interesting sidetopic.
December 5, 2007 at 12:43 am
Again, this has been mentioned before, but I would like a book that covers advanced Ruby. Let me take a step back here and explain... there was an article by _why that described the GC process in Ruby. I think a book that goes both deep and high into Ruby would be awesome. Deep in that it explains the internals and working of Ruby, and then using that to work some advanced Ruby (a.k.a metaprogramming).
Another book, that I think would be useful would be teach say, Java programmers trying to move to Ruby. I have read Ruby recipes and love it, but in the beginning, when writing Ruby, I was just converting Java syntax to Ruby. For example, using blocks to simulate the listener pattern...
December 5, 2007 at 4:46 am
Would like to read a book about Ruby as it relates to Mac OS X, in particular RubyCocoa, and the new Scripting Bridge in Leopard. It could also include a section on performance testing using Ruby-DTrace.
December 6, 2007 at 5:01 am
@Raju: Not exactly what you were looking for, but here's a start: http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_r4j
December 6, 2007 at 7:54 am
I would like to read a book about how to program robots or even about a hardware description language. Since Ruby is a more 'human' understandable language, programming these could be a lot of fun, but also resulting in a better code by better expresing ideas.
Another book I would like to read is a book about how to optimize Ruby code for a particular problem. or even for a particular platform. And why not, how to modify the Ruby source code to optimize it for a particular aspect.
December 7, 2007 at 11:33 pm
* Automation with Ruby, for example using RubySOA to applescript your mac.
* DSLs in Ruby
* Shell Scripting in Ruby
* RubyCocoa
* Graphics Programming in Ruby would be neat. This isn't a book exactly, but I'd love to see a processing-like environment in Ruby.
* Implementing messaging/queueing frameworks in Ruby, for example as a broker in a publish-subscribe model
If we're going to talk Rails...
* Caching in Rails
* Deploying Rails
* Neat uses of AR callbacks / observers in Rails
December 10, 2007 at 9:16 pm
How about 'Advanced ActionMailer'? Stuff like Mass-mailing, inline-attachments, crypting, hacks?
December 12, 2007 at 10:18 pm
A decoder to "Why"