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It was very much of a time and place, and obviously people are welcome to take or leave it. I certainly cringe that every language now seems to need its own twe
by thom 3y ago
It was very much of a time and place, and obviously people are welcome to take or leave it. I certainly cringe that every language now seems to need its own twee, jokey, book-long tutorial, like Learn You a Haskell for Great Good and Clojure for the Brave and True. But Why’s (Poignant) Guide captured the playfulness and nostalgia for lost time that the Ruby community evoked for a lot of people back then, especially those that had grown up with computers but drifted into enterprise software and watched the joy of technology slowly seep out of their lives. Whether it's a good way to learn Ruby the language, I don't really remember.
- mjw1007 3y agoI don't think the jokey book-long tutorial is a new phenomenon. I learned Fortran in the 80s from the Fortran Coloring Book.
- thom 3y agoI now also see Comic Pascal from 1984, fair enough.
- steveklabnik 3y agoComputer Lib / Dream Machines, 1974.
- kbutler 3y ago1981 Getting Started with TRS-80 Basic was also playful - https://archive.org/details/Getting_Started_with_TRS-80_Basic_1981_Tandy/page/n1/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Getting_Started_with_TRS-80_Basi...
- dionidium 3y agoIn case it makes anybody feel better, I was "around" at the time and I never got it, either. Tried to read it many times and never could finish.