i think the documentation at http://www.ruby-doc.org/ is fairly
useless.

is there a better one?

2008/5/27 <notnorwegian@yahoo.se>:
> i think the documentation at http://www.ruby-doc.org/ is fairly
> useless.
>
> is there a better one?

According to what standards?

robert


--
use.inject do |as, often| as.you_can - without end

The pickaxe book is probably better overall.
And there is some rails-powered site ... noobkit, which is ok, though
missing some things as well.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2008/5/27 Marc Heiler <shevegen@linuxmail.org>:
> The pickaxe book is probably better overall.

The pickaxe is actually linked from the site the OP mentioned.

robert

--
use.inject do |as, often| as.you_can - without end

What sort of documentation are you looking for reference? tutorial?
At what level? Beginner, intermediate, expert?


notnorwegian@yahoo.se wrote:
> i think the documentation at http://www.ruby-doc.org/ is fairly
> useless.
>
> is there a better one?
>
>

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

I find ruby-doc to be great. But if you are looking for a tutorial, it
probably isn't the place to go. It is much better as a reference.

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Ron Fox <fox@nscl.msu.edu> wrote:

> What sort of documentation are you looking for reference? tutorial?
> At what level? Beginner, intermediate, expert?
>
>
>
> notnorwegian@yahoo.se wrote:
>
>> i think the documentation at http://www.ruby-doc.org/ is fairly
>> useless.
>>
>> is there a better one?
>>
>>
>>
>

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 2:58 PM, James Bracy <waratuman86@gmail.com> wrote:
> I find ruby-doc to be great. But if you are looking for a tutorial, it
> probably isn't the place to go. It is much better as a reference.
Please do not top post this community (as many others) prefer bottom
posting, you can however post in between. In that case your post will
refer to the text above by convention .

ruby-doc is great I agree, and there are most useful links to widely
accepted books and even tutorials.

Cheers
Robert
--
http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

On May 27, 2008, at 7:03 AM, Robert Dober wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 2:58 PM, James Bracy <waratuman86@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> I find ruby-doc to be great. But if you are looking for a tutorial,
>> it
>> probably isn't the place to go. It is much better as a reference.

> Please do not top post this community (as many others) prefer bottom
> posting

Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long,
prefer top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem to
feel that they can speak for everyone else.

///ark

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

What's top or bottom posting anyway?
I just want to learn the "right" way to post or answer (which I hardly do
since I am a neophyte).

Thanks

Victor

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:

> On May 27, 2008, at 7:03 AM, Robert Dober wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 2:58 PM, James Bracy <waratuman86@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I find ruby-doc to be great. But if you are looking for a tutorial, it
>>> probably isn't the place to go. It is much better as a reference.
>>>
>>
> Please do not top post this community (as many others) prefer bottom
>> posting
>>
>
> Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long,
> prefer top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem to feel
> that they can speak for everyone else.
>
> ///ark
>
>

This is top posting.

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Victor Reyes <victor.reyes@gmail.com> wrote:
> What's top or bottom posting anyway?

This is bottom posting.

> I just want to learn the "right" way to post or answer (which I hardly do
> since I am a neophyte).
>
> Thanks
>
> Victor

This is bottom posting a conclusion.

Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.

Some mail readers work better this way, as well.

hth,
Todd

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Todd Benson <caduceass@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is top posting.
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Victor Reyes <victor.reyes@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > What's top or bottom posting anyway?
>
> This is bottom posting.
>
> > I just want to learn the "right" way to post or answer (which I hardly do
> > since I am a neophyte).
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Victor
>
> This is bottom posting a conclusion.
>
> Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.
>
> Some mail readers work better this way, as well.
>
> hth,
> Todd
>
> Thank you & I guess this is bottom posting!

On May 27, 2008, at 7:39 AM, Todd Benson wrote:

> Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.

Only if a single email is regarded as a conversation. In actuality,
the -thread- is the conversation. Imagine if in a real conversation,
people felt impelled to prefix their remarks with every other remark
that's already been made.

I bottom post because I don't want to get jumped on by the anti-
toppers. But then, I also trim, so it doesn't really matter. What I
hate is having to scroll down just to see what's been added to the
thread.

///ark

On May 27, 2008, at 7:49 AM, Tobias Weber wrote:

> In article <0D16738A-F1A2-4DB9-87E9-FEC81AF636CF@mwilden.com>,
> Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:
>
>> Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long,
>> prefer top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem
>> to
>> feel that they can speak for everyone else.
>
> In Usenet pro-toppers are extremely rare.

There probably are no "pro-toppers." But I would imagine that there
are people, like myself, who would rather not have to scroll to read a
post. I would also imagine that many agnostics bottom-post (even if
it's less efficient) just to avoid the anti-toppers.

i agree that if you're replying point by point to someone,
interposting (which is a form of bottom-posting) is the way to go. I
also think most people quote way too heavily (out of laziness).
Finally, I think some people need to learn to use email, instead of
quoting three pages, then sticking "Thanks!" at the bottom.

I've been doing this stuff since 1984. It's only been relatively
recently that I've seen the insistence that bottoming is the "one true
way" and the attempted intimidation of anyone who doesn't agree.

///ark

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:

>> Please do not top post this community (as many others) prefer bottom
>> posting
>
> Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long, prefer
> top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem to feel that
> they can speak for everyone else.

I have never seen anybody plead for top posting, I have however very
often seen people asking kindly or humorously to bottom post.
If you prefer top posts that seems to be unlucky for you especially as
you did not ask either kindly nor humorously.
I however do not take any offense and I was not speaking for others
but transmitting information gathered over the years.
Please go through the trouble of looking at the common posting scheme
and what happens when somebody is top posting.

Please note also that nobody ever has been agressed when kindly asking
not to top post, as it just happened to me I am afraid that maybe I
was not kind enough, if this is the case all my apologies.

It however remains my intimate conviction that bottom posting is the
accepted standard on this list, but if all of those who prefer top
posting speak up, things might change.

Cheers
Robert

--
http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

In article <2173d81e0805270750t7115743cx2e96cd5f0132498a@mail .gmail.com>,
Victor Reyes <victor.reyes@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.
>>
>> Some mail readers work better this way, as well.
>>
>> hth,
>> Todd
>>
>> Thank you & I guess this is bottom posting!

Yes, except you managed to include a superfluous > quote mark
before your reply. That makes it harder for a reader to tell
what you wrote ("Thank you...") apart from what Todd wrote.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible (ideally) for readers
to follow the discussion. If you're asking a question or making
a point, people are more likely to understand you if you follow
commonly accepted guidelines, as described here:

http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

Francis

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Mark Wilden wrote:
| On May 27, 2008, at 7:39 AM, Todd Benson wrote:
|
|> Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.
|
| Only if a single email is regarded as a conversation. In actuality, the
| -thread- is the conversation. Imagine if in a real conversation, people
| felt impelled to prefix their remarks with every other remark that's
| already been made.

Condensing what has been said by somebody else actually is a honored
practice. Summing up the state of affairs (in spoken conversation) s
focusing on what is being said by all parties and avoids the nasty habit
of getting side-tracked in minutiae or mired in tangents.

| I bottom post because I don't want to get jumped on by the anti-toppers.

Consider that not every one is a) using a threaded email client, b)
follows all threads all the time, and b) most people skim before they
read (information filtering is a survival tactic).

Just top posting might (*might*) be acceptable in a business/one-on-one
conversation, but is considered rude otherwise: You don't take the time
to adhere to convention / netiquette / waste other people's time in
putting your response into context, why should *others* take the time to
read what you write?

| But then, I also trim, so it doesn't really matter. What I hate is
| having to scroll down just to see what's been added to the thread.

Which is especially aggravating if it is a rather high signal / noise
ratio (i.e. an AOL following a screen or two of content).


- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

~ - You know you've been hacking too long when...
...you test a program, and it fails, so you jump into the editor, look
at it, jump out, recompile and test (without making changes) and it
still doesn't work, so you jump ........ and it still doesn't work
...... recompile without any changes........
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On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 9:53 AM, Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:
> On May 27, 2008, at 7:39 AM, Todd Benson wrote:
>
>> Bottom posting tends to take on a more natural conversational feel.
>
> Only if a single email is regarded as a conversation. In actuality, the
> -thread- is the conversation. Imagine if in a real conversation, people felt
> impelled to prefix their remarks with every other remark that's already been
> made.

Yes. It's a group discussion. You go to the bathroom during it, and
someone should reiterate for you what had been said. I'm certainly
against verbose quoting (I try to snip as much as possible), but to
follow the thread easier, sometimes I like to see things without
having to scan through deleted emails or worse, jump to the archive
site for the original post.

> then, I also trim, so it doesn't really matter. What I hate is having to
> scroll down just to see what's been added to the thread.

I think someone said it on this list in a humorous way a short while
back; I forget who...

"- Because it's makes sense.
- Why should I bottom post?"

...or something to that effect.

On a side note. Most of my non-techie friends consistently top post
(with the added "benefit" of enclosing at the bottom a non-related
email I sent them weeks ago), so maybe it has a lot to do with who is
talking and what about.

Todd

On May 27, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Robert Dober wrote:

> I have never seen anybody plead for top posting

You're missing my point. No one would plead for top posting. What I
was referring to is the anti-toppers who tell people that bottom-
posting is the standard. It's not, as any casual observance of Usenet
posts would tell you.

> I have however very
> often seen people asking kindly or humorously to bottom post.

I actually haven't seen many kindly requests and I've certainly never
seen a humorous request. Generally, the message is "Why are you top-
posting?" which implies that it's not even necessary to explain why
that's so terrible. (This is basically the original meaning of the
phrase "begging the question.")

> If you prefer top posts that seems to be unlucky for you especially as
> you did not ask either kindly nor humorously.

This may be a language issue, Robert. I didn't ask anyone to do
anything.

> I however do not take any offense and I was not speaking for others
> but transmitting information gathered over the years.

I'll match my years against your years.
>
> Please go through the trouble of looking at the common posting scheme
> and what happens when somebody is top posting.

I don't know what you mean.

> Please note also that nobody ever has been agressed when kindly asking
> not to top post

Untrue.

> It however remains my intimate conviction that bottom posting is the
> accepted standard on this list

I'm curious - why do you think that? Is it because the anti-toppers
are the only ones who care deeply enough about the subject to speak
up? If so, it's a mistake to impute a standard from that behavior.
Again, using statistics as a guide, bottom-posting is not a standard -
except to those who believe it is.

> but if all of those who prefer top posting speak up, things might
> change.

I don't know of anyone who prefers top-posting.

Here are my preferences (and I don't generally ask people to follow
them):

1. Don't quote when it's not necessary. Most of the time, a very short
quote suffices.

2. If you're replying to individual points, then put your responses
with each point.

3. Otherwise, I couldn't care less what you do.

///ark

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Todd Benson wrote:

| "- Because it's makes sense.
| - Why should I bottom post?"
|
| ...or something to that effect.

What I like to use (I don't remember from whom I stole^Wborrowed it:
A: Because it makes it difficult to follow the conversation.
Q: Why is top posting bad?

| On a side note. Most of my non-techie friends consistently top post
| (with the added "benefit" of enclosing at the bottom a non-related
| email I sent them weeks ago), so maybe it has a lot to do with who is
| talking and what about.

In my experience, the TOFU style is most common in business and business
like environments.

Possibly, because it is an exchange of highly specific information, it
is, usually not a conversation or exchange of ideas, rarely are more
than two parties involved, and, last but not least, Outlook starts a new
reply at the top of the quoted text (and it is *extremely* difficult to
change that behavior).

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

~ Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making
the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing
for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on
any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into
principles! -- Calvin
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On May 27, 2008, at 8:04 AM, Tobias Weber wrote:

> On a mailing list and in most newsreaders you only see one message
> body
> at a time, especially when you "fetch unread" often. In that case it
> does make sense to quote the immediate sentence you are replying to.

Probably. However, consider the history of written communication. When
people wrote letters to each other, or to newspapers, they didn't
usually quote. There's another technique, which incorporates context
into your reply.

I actually spent about a month not quoting anything. No meaning was
lost. But it was much harder work, so I can see why (brief) quoting is
better.

>> people felt impelled to prefix their remarks with every other remark
>> that's already been made.
>
> But we do! Watch any talkshow: So Mr A basically said that B sucks. I
> concur. Whats your opinion, Mr C?

First, this forum/newsgroup is not a talkshow - it's a time-extended
conversation. People just talk, sometimes to each other, sometimes
over each other. And even in a talkshow, as when a newsperson is
interviewing multiple people at a time (which I think is what you
might be referring to), the entire previous conversation is not
repeated every time someone has something to say.

Imagine a conversation like this:

A: I like ham

B: You like ham. I agree, especially with eggs

A: I like ham and you said that I like ham and then you agreed, adding
that eggs are good with ham. I don't like eggs, though.

B: You like ham, and I agreed, adding the part about the eggs, and
then you...

That's what a typical overquoted Usenet thread is equivalent to.

///ark

As a matter of personal preference, I prefer what seems to be called
"top posting".

While reading, if I've been following a thread, I like to see the new
info first. Replies are often brief and my old eyes sometimes have a
hard time finding where the quoting ends and the reply begins. If I
haven't been following the thread but get interested, I consider it my
responsibility to do the homework and get caught up on previous posts in
the thread.

While replying, I try to write whole sentences that are reasonably
self-explanatory. I usually include (at the bottom) the particular post
that I am replying to - snipped for brevity - just for context.

Point-by-point replies seem understandable to me with inter-posting.
But I still prefer complete sentences and self-explanatory replies.
Again, the quoting simply provides context and is only scanned, not
re-read.

Of course, now I've gone and contributed to a bigger problem - thread
hijacking!




j

James D. Maher
J.D. Maher & Associates, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Dober [mailto:robert.dober@gmail.com]=20
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:07 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: documentation for ruby?

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:

>> Please do not top post this community (as many others) prefer bottom
>> posting
>
> Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long,
prefer
> top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem to feel
that
> they can speak for everyone else.

I have never seen anybody plead for top posting, I have however very
often seen people asking kindly or humorously to bottom post.
If you prefer top posts that seems to be unlucky for you especially as
you did not ask either kindly nor humorously.
I however do not take any offense and I was not speaking for others
but transmitting information gathered over the years.
Please go through the trouble of looking at the common posting scheme
and what happens when somebody is top posting.

Please note also that nobody ever has been agressed when kindly asking
not to top post, as it just happened to me I am afraid that maybe I
was not kind enough, if this is the case all my apologies.

It however remains my intimate conviction that bottom posting is the
accepted standard on this list, but if all of those who prefer top
posting speak up, things might change.

Cheers
Robert

--=20
http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:
> I don't know of anyone who prefers top-posting.

It's funny. Friends and acquaintances do this all the time to me,
sometimes with conversations a year old and no reference to stand on,
or barely five minutes old with my _entire_ sent mail tacked on at the
end (sometimes as an attachment, ugh!).

It seems to me we're mostly on the same page. I still lecture my
friends to please at least make an attempt to bottom post for your
shorter replies, and resort to essay replies (put them wherever you
want) for thorough critiques and the like :-)

Todd

On May 27, 2008, at 9:19 AM, Francis Burton wrote:

> commonly accepted guidelines, as described here:
>
> http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

These guidelines are not commonly accepted.

I disagree also with one of them in the RFC: always apologize for
cross-posting. That makes no sense. If in a particular case it's bad
to cross-post (and it often is), then just don't do it. If it's not
bad, what's there to apologize for?

///ark

In article <9A43A375-01EE-41DE-B137-70AF3EABDE54@mwilden.com>,
Mark Wilden <mark@mwilden.com> wrote:
>You're missing my point. No one would plead for top posting. What I
>was referring to is the anti-toppers who tell people that bottom-
>posting is the standard. It's not, as any casual observance of Usenet
>posts would tell you.

What proportion of posts (or posters) are top-posting? Less than
10%, I am sure, and probably less than 5%. By this measure at
least, top-posting is non-standard.

>> I have however very
>> often seen people asking kindly or humorously to bottom post.
>
>I actually haven't seen many kindly requests and I've certainly never
>seen a humorous request. Generally, the message is "Why are you top-
>posting?" which implies that it's not even necessary to explain why
>that's so terrible. (This is basically the original meaning of the
>phrase "begging the question.")

Most responses are rather curt, I agree.

>I don't know of anyone who prefers top-posting.
>
>Here are my preferences (and I don't generally ask people to follow
>them):
>
>1. Don't quote when it's not necessary. Most of the time, a very short
>quote suffices.

Agreed.
>
>2. If you're replying to individual points, then put your responses
>with each point.

With meaning below, presumably.

>3. Otherwise, I couldn't care less what you do.

Or you could care less. :-)

Francis

On May 27, 2008, at 9:19 AM, Phillip Gawlowski wrote:

> Condensing what has been said by somebody else actually is a honored
> practice. Summing up the state of affairs (in spoken conversation)
> s
> focusing on what is being said by all parties and avoids the nasty
> habit
> of getting side-tracked in minutiae or mired in tangents.

It may be an honored practice, but it doesn't usually happen because
it's not usually necessary. See my example about ham and eggs.

> Consider that not every one is a) using a threaded email client, b)
> follows all threads all the time, and b) most people skim before they
> read (information filtering is a survival tactic).

I've already read what's been quoted. Since I read a -lot- of email, I
generally read it no more than a day ago (I can't let things pile up).
I don't need to read it again. All I need to know is what, generally,
the guy's talking about. Most of the time, I can get that from what
he's saying (plus my capacity to remember past events). If not, the
subject line is usually enough. There is no need to recapitulate the
entire conversation.

I also skim before I read. But what I skim is the new stuff, not the
old stuff. If I have to scroll to do that, it makes me cranky.

> Just top posting might (*might*) be acceptable in a business/one-on-
> one
> conversation, but is considered rude otherwise

Begging the question.

> Which is especially aggravating if it is a rather high signal / noise
> ratio (i.e. an AOL following a screen or two of content).

It actually sounds like we're in basic agreement. If people would only
trim properly, this would be a non-issue (as far as I'm concerned).
But I see a lot more knee-jerk responses to top-posting than to excess
quoting.

///ark