Archive for the ‘knowledge’ Category
Book: Everyday Scripting with Ruby
I read Everyday Scripting with Ruby last week and found it an odd read. I think the problem was that I read it directly after the conceptually dense, language rich, feature length Programming Ruby.
The book is pitched at a very high level, so that non-developers can get familiar with Ruby. Now as a Ruby Newbie, I still picked up the odd nugget here and there given that Brian approached stuff from a testing perspective, but overall I didn’t pick up enough stuff for me to recommend his book internally within Cognifide.
Instead, I would direct you guys his blog which i find a much more interesting read. Also, I like the theme of his new book which is scripting Mac OS X Leopard using Ruby. Check out the mailing list.
A fact is like a sack…
I’m reading a great a little book on “the myths of innovation” by scott berkun and came across this great quote by the prominent historian Edward Carr:
“It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is of course untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor and in what order or context…a fact is like a sack - it won’t stand up till you’ve put something in it.”
Take a look at a couple of the following facts, and tell me just how much crap someone put in those sacks:
- With agile development, there is no need to document.
- Peanut butter and jelly tastes good (inconceivable).
- Software development is easy.
- Databases are slow, lets use the filesystem, it’s quicker (still with us this one).
- Testing is a optional extra if we have time (sigh, why are people still doing this).