Robert Evans

&rlThere has been a lack of posts recently, but I promise it is for a good reason. As it might suggest, I am not currently writing a book. I have had two offers as of now, but with work, freelance and several on going projects, I just don’t have the time right now. I do have several good ideas for some titles, but lack the time to actually make it happen.

So, instead of pursuing the authoring thing, I have been doing the Technical Editing thing for SAMS Publishing company. In December, a new book will be released, entitled Ruby Phrasebook. I have been fortunate enough to have already read about half of the book already, editing the code and giving ideas and suggestions where I feel they are needed.

This has been a really great experience. One, I get to read a book beofre it is even published, and two I get to learn about the whole publishing thing before ( if ) I ever decide to actually author a book.

The Ruby Phrasebook is turning out to be a really good book. It, as all SAMS Phrasebooks do, concetrates on presenting examples or tutorials and not so much on trying to teach beginning programming. There are several aspects that are “beginner” topics within programming itself, demonstrated in the Ruby language, that can be quite helpful for those that are either new to programming or those who are new to Ruby. Also, what is interesting is that this book is coming from the perspective of a system admin who uses Ruby in his day to day job. There are some tricks that I think many people will find quite interesting and cool that are usually done in Shell Scripting but can also be done in Ruby as well, say if you don’t have Telnet installed or don’t have access, and need to use it anyways.

There have been a few things that I have thought could be better, thus I have made several comments to the author for his review and possible inclusion thereof. All in all, the book has a completely different take on it if you are from the Rails point of view. It is pure Ruby in a completely different atmosphere, which is quite refreshing.

This is exactly what the Ruby community needs, as well as those who are Rails programmers and desire to know more about Ruby in ways that don’t relate to Rails, yet, if one wanted, could include within their Rails applications. This book is definately a different take on Ruby than the Pickaxe book or the Ruby for Rails book.

The people over at SAMS have been great to work with. They really do desire to write good books and get the ideas of the community to better their books. Mark, one of the editors over at SAMS has some great ideas to get the community involved and get their feedback while the book is in development.

All in all, this experience has been a really good one. I hope in the future to continue to work with SAMS as a Technical Editor and perhaps in the future as an author. I highly suggest you take a look at this book when it hits the shelves in December!