On Dec 14, 8:26 am, "Jeremy McAnally" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Because it's $30-40?  I always hated the fact that to really get into
> Rails I had to shell out for a book.  
[snip]

> All that's to say: I think it's dumb to have to spend a decent sum of
> money to really be able to use Rails.

I totally sympathize, but actually i've only learned from books my
entire career.  I've never really been about to use "official" docs
for much more than reference.  That's been true since I first learned
BASIC, then Pascal, then C++, then .NET, now Ruby.  I'm usually glad
to spend $100 on books for something new, because it pays itself back.

I think the reason that official docs are not as good is apparent.  As
I'm sure you know, being a good writer is different than being a good
developer.  That's why I've always found it odd that there are all
these appeals for developers to help write documentation.  Developers
can maybe write reference material or rdoc-style docs.  They can't
necessarily teach or explain well.  In the same way that most Rails
programmers are also not good web designers.

> As for starting a book, there's the start to an open source book on
> Rails here:http://www.railsdocumentation.org/book.html
>
> It's out of date and not a lot of content at this point
[snip]

Exactly my point. :-)  Unless there are people who love to write, are
good at writing, and get some kind of reward (monetary, recognition,
or otherwise), this is doomed to happen. It's no one's fault, it's
just how it is. Some developers are good at it (like you), most are
not.  Look at the Rails blogosphere.  The good ones tend to be by
developers who also write well and teach well.  And that's why it's
also hard to have a successful technical blog.

My two cents, anyway.

Jeff
softiesonrails.com


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