Hal Fulton on "The Ruby Way"

On Ruby blogger Pat Eyler published today an intereview with Hal Fulton, author of The Ruby Way (forthcoming in a new second edition). While I can't claim to have been bitten by the Ruby bug yet myself (frankly, I just haven't been able to make the time to even dabble in it), I have become an avid observer of the language, the Rails framework, and all the discussions and happenings around them. So this interview with Hal is interesting from that point of view--including as it does some of his reflections on the early days of Ruby (way back in '99!) and how much it has grown in scope and capability sinc then.

What really inspired me to blog about the interview, though, is that I love to see this kind of evidence of the synergy between technical innovation, blogging, and book publishing. I see this evidence not only in the content of the interview itself, but also in the fact that blogger Pat Eyler took the time to make this interview and blog post happen--and that similar flows of energy, if you will, move back and forth between blogging and books every day. This would be unremarkable perhaps, if we were talking about political or entertainment blogging, but here we see even those on the forefront of technology and online publishing continue to find value in the old fashioned printed book. An obvious point, some might say ("No duh..."), but one that I like to ponder anyway.

Whether or not Ruby is of interest to you, if software development books and publishing are, you might find the interview interesting.

Thanks for reading,
Dan