Ruby Code & Style – a new online magazine from Artima about the Ruby language.

The tendency with a reference book like this is to lump everything about a particular topic into long, boring sections. However, Dave Thomas and co-authors have managed not to do this. The book is good at switching gears frequently enough to keep my focus. Notes comparing Ruby to Perl, Java, and C++ add perspective if you are familiar with those languages. The code samples in this book also set it apart from similar programming books: the examples are concise–giving just enough information to illustrate the point in question.

As I read through the book, I find myself thinking: “Wow, it would’ve taken me so much more code to do that in Java (or C++ or …)!”

I’m not a kernel hacker, and it’s been a while since I’ve coded in C, but I picked this up to learn more about the nitty gritty details of the operating system I use everyday. I like the special attention given to overall concepts and how certain aspects of the kernel came into being. A good read.