Ruby is a hot topic among software developers -- and rightly so. It's an exciting language to learn for "old school" programmers because it allows many luxuries and conveniences that you used to have to code around at length. Ruby is equally as attractive to new developers because it is easy to learn and can be implemented on almost any platform. A good book that introduces this interesting language by designing scripts for software development and testing would certainly be welcome; unfortunately, Everyday Scripting With Ruby isn't it.

Writing analysis

What a terribly written book this is. The language is so poorly crafted that whatever information the author is trying to convey is at best muddled, and at worst totally lost. The author speaks over-colloquially, as though a shift in style will somehow make the book's content easier to understand. Writing simply does not convey complex concepts more simply; all it does it make the material more difficult to understand.

The author irritatingly worships feminist propaganda by using female pronouns exclusively, which is such a distraction in itself that it is difficult to focus on the technical content. If you want to protest a male-dominated culture, go march in parades and hold signs at protests -- don't cheat your readers out of a good, non-political, technology-centric text that teaches them how to solve important problems with an interesting programming language.

Putting the book to the test

I did not get very far into Everyday Scripting With Ruby before I was so thoroughly disgusted with it that I could no longer continue. There are a shocking number of technical errors, inaccurate oversimplifications, and errors of fact in the first 50 pages. Particularly frightening is the author's misunderstanding of operating systems. He claims that Linux, the BSDs, and OS X are based on AT&T Unix (does Brian Marick work for The SCO Group?), and that OS X is "Unix with a pretty face." All of this nonsense, in addition to the fact that all of the book's screen shots are of Mac OS X, suggests that this book is yet another misinformed fruithead's musings on technology he doesn't understand. To clarify, there is no evidence to suggest that there is Unix code in Linux; BSD was originally a rewrite of AT&T Unix, but no longer exists in that form; and OS X has absolutely no basis in AT&T Unix (or any other trademarked UNIX or SVR4 code). I did not feel that I could trust the author to teach me how to write scripts with Ruby after reading these blunders.

Flipping through the rest of the book I see lots of unnecessary first-person narrative, and colloquial speech that hinders the uptake of useful technical information. There are better languages to use for the kind of software development-centric scripting that the author tries to focus on in Everyday Scripting With Ruby, but he never explains why he feels that Ruby is a superior choice.

Conclusions

Avoid Everyday Scripting With Ruby at all costs. You're likely to find it confusing, non-specific, inaccurate, and inappropriate as a Ruby resource. Considering the large number of Ruby books out there, nearly all of which are guaranteed to be better at helping you how to learn Ruby, it's not worth wasting your time and money on this one.

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Copyright 2007 JEM Electronic Media, Inc. No reprints without written permission.