Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby is an online Ruby book full of cartoons and commentary suitable for people wondering about languages. Looks great, but I’ve just started it.
What strikes me about the Ruby community is that many of its books are online – the so-far best guide Programming Ruby is also online and, despite having it there, I bought it. I like having things in both print and online for when the book isn’t at hand. (And now they have added a convenient table of contents and jump targets to the online one.) For programming online publication can only help. Anyone serious needs to carefully read to get programming and hence print is still best. The online version helps with looking up and as a preview.
Now I need to think about the poignant side of this e-book. Does its style work?