Nobody Knows Shoes

That is one sexy book.

Oh how very excellent! Does that mean I can make Desktop applications with Shoes and nobody is any the wiser?

But my only complaint is that it is a paper book only! I live in Australia and it will take days to placate my impatience while it is being boated or aeroplaned!!!

why oh why is this not in pdf form :(

poignantguide.net/shoes in March, then?

Yes, please make it available in PDF form!

Another one a little far away hoping for a pdf.

I would be happy to see any API documentation.
Searching through examples to find out what you can do with shoes is not convenient :(

Oh, but NKS was made to be seen and felt.

Well, a PDF can still be printed to be seen and felt :)
My cheap ass 100€ Canon Pixma IP5000 printer who is already over 2 years old can print stuff looking as if it was done in a professional print shop. I don’t think Lulu can do any better than that ^^

The thing with you _why is, I think writing a whole book and publishing it isn’t the right thing for you. I love books, I read books 3 hours a day at least, but I hate technical books. They are outdated even before they are printed. I spent over 3000 € on technical books over the last ten years and every time I bought one I feel like a complete idiot because I did :) What I think is that it would much better fit you to make a single page (not necessary DIN A4, but as big as it needs to be to cover the idea you are writing down at that moment) a week that maybe costs a dollar or two (just as much as is needed to make you able to work on it every day for an hour). A page that has an awesome abstract(?) design filled with information, like your blog posts. Why? Because you are inspired so often and you change your mind on things quite often too :) This way, the whole book, whenever it will be finished, is never outdated and will be the best book one can write about the topic because as soon as you are inspired and have an idea, it’ll be in there. That’s what I would love to see in a general Ruby book from you. There are so many cool gems out there, so many different things you can do with Ruby, I think you would be the best person for the job to make a book that is never really finished but is constantly updated and may become the holy bible of programming :) The world is constantly changing, you are constantly changing, technology is constantly changing, views are constantly changing. Don’t kill the world’s motion by writing dead words, use a medium that moves with the world instead. It wouldn’t even have to be exclusively about Ruby, you could write about every programming language you come along in life. If one isn’t interested in the topic covered this week, he buys next weeks page instead. Or he buys it nevertheless and becomes interested in it while reading ^^

But anyhow, cool thing that you made a book and shoes itself. I use Ruby-gnome2 for Ruby GUI development and it’s okay to do so but it’s really a stark contrast to the ease and fun of programming Ruby. I got many of my friends to be interested in programming Ruby for fun or to help with repetitive tasks (mostly girls which is a bit uncommon I think ^^) and teaching Ruby isn’t that big of a problem, but I wouldn’t be able to teach them GTK development and they wouldn’t even be interested. Something like Shoes though.. Yeah, I could interest them in that with no problems at all :) There are so many cool things going on right now with Ruby, I hope you had a chance to take a look at Gosu for example. It’s a game engine for Ruby and it is the first Ruby game engine that, for me personally, feels like Ruby.

chris +1

Oh, but NKS was made to be seen and felt.

Will it look as handsome on my bookshelf as New Kind of Science?

Is SICP “outdated”?

Oh oh, and NKS was made to be waited for in the mail!

That’s quite an interesting idea, Chris, do you keep a set of personal notebooks at all? Cause I guess that would be like publishing one’s notebooks every day.

AndrewO: It won’t look that good. Since it’s like a comic book.

This is just an experiment for me, folks. A curiousity, to see what it would be like to do something like a tech comic book that could only be had through the plain old archaic post. My feelings go out to those in Europe and Australia, to anyone who is isolated and trapped in such harsh tundras.

I will be interested to hear reactions from people who get the thing in the mail as to whether they would like a volume two. I also HIGHLY AWAIT (in March) a side-by-side comparison between a product of Chris’ printer and the one linked here.

I, for one, welcome our new dead tree, um, shoes book.

I like books. I like to put them on the shelf, and then take them out and read them. You don’t need to plug them in, you can fold the corners of the pages and drop them in the front pocket of your backpack. You can spill coffee on them and they don’t stop working. Hooray for books? Yes.

NKS

I see what you did, thar!

but we also have comic readers as apps. I for one want a pdf before I buy a paper book unless I can see it at Borders first. :D

I just bought your book, waiting for it anxiously. I haven’t even tried Shoes yet…but it looks really cool, and Why’s Guide to Ruby is awesome so I know the book will be good, and under 9 bucks? Sale!

I think you should write more books. You’re really good at it.

I just bought it, but I thought I was supporting _why by doing so. Unfortunately, I just realized that it’s “priced at cost”. I mean, I’ll be glad to have the actual book in my hands because I know it will be glorious, but I sure would like to see _why get paid for his efforts…

code > money tbh

I am one who is in Europe happily awaiting my copy–I’d love to see the poingant guide printed this way.

Huzzah! I am now on my way to knowing Shoes!

ps: the book in very worth it. You’ll be the hippest cat in your alley.