From why at poignantguide.net  Wed May 18 03:32:20 2005
From: why at poignantguide.net (why the lucky stiff)
Date: Wed May 18 03:25:46 2005
Subject: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, Chapter Six: Downtown
Message-ID: <428AEF84.20901@poignantguide.net>

Hallo, after months of work sweating ferociously, wringing my hands into 
soft-serve ice cream, troubling over how I would introduce all these 
readers to metaprogramming--

I happened upon an ancient blue elixir which was hidden in the cupboard 
of my grandfather clock!  And I drank it and I cackled aloud for seven 
months solid!  And then I had to get writing.  And I did.

And: http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Chapter Six, "Downtown," rejoins the friendly foxes, the tall and the 
short, on their misadventures to locate their lost pickup truck.  As 
always: much code.  And now with syntax highlighting!

One sad note.  I feel that it is time to remove the introductory 
paragraph which emphasizes that the (Poignant) Guide "is just a small 
Ruby book."  Now weighing in at 180 pages, it's time to rephrase.  Or is 
this still small for a programming manual?  I dare not say.  So you tell me.

--
A bit of news as well...

* Chapter 3 will be printed in Joel Spolsky's "Best Software Writing I" 
due out next month.  They are printing the sidebars and everything.  
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=453

* Subversive chunky bacon sloganeering at the FSF meeting: 
http://loxosceles.org/photos/2005-03-26_fsf_meeting/img_2480-small.jpg

* I will be speaking in August with the assistance of a synthesizer and 
some puppets at OSCON 2005: 
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2005/view/e_sess/6948

_why