why's poignant guide to ruby / style as a filter
all the work on licensing has begun to atrophy the fun part of my brain. so, i wandered over to Dan Sugalski's blog in search of something that would get the neurons firing again in both my fun center and my code center.
this is where i ran across a link to why's (poignant) guide to ruby, a stylish and idiosyncratic little guide to ruby. as ruby is the language that i love to talk about, but don't spend enough time using, this was the perfect fit for my state of mind
of course, since I was wasting a bit of time, i checked out Dan's link to someone else's opinion on the guide. from that link, this in particular caught my eye:
The funny thing is, the super-cutesy, sickly sweet tone of this tutorial is exactly the sort of tone that a mass-market Japanese-language programming text would adopt. He even has a little cartoon animal mascot. I can just imagine reading this in Japanese
this reminded me that style is a great filter when you are communicating. if you aren't the kind of person who likes how why does things, you will know right away. you can read a few pages, have an allergic reaction and then get back to coding actuarial apps in oocobol (or whatever else greases your gears)
personally, i do like how why communicates - coding is a lot about the joy of crafting. i like communication about the topic that brings this joy into the wisdom that is conveyed. most of my favorite texts on the topic are infused with this spirit - take The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs as an example. the first paragraph of the first chapter ends with, " In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells." what a great way to set the tone for an entire book.
eof
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Posted on Friday, March 5th, 2004 at 0:00
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