You’re familiar with O’Reilly’s brilliant Head First Series, right?  Great.  Then you know how every book begins with an explanation of the Head First teaching style and you know the teaching format which Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates developed is based on research in cognitive science, neurobiology and educational psychology and it’s all about making learning visual and conversational and attractive and emotional and it’s highly effective.  Anyway, it’s a great series and you should read every last one of the books. Moving on…

I’ve been wanting to learn more about Ruby and Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby has been on my reading list for a while and there was talk about cartoon foxes and other silliness and I figured Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby probably takes the same unorthodox teaching style as the Head First books – and that’s great – so I read the book, in piecemeal, over the last couple of weeks and, well, I figured wrong.

Now having read the book, here’s my take on Why’s (Poignant) Guide – it’s very creative and clever and it does a darn good job of introducing one to Ruby.  If you’re interested in Ruby or simply interested, the online book is worth your time.  If you’re thinking (like me) that cartoon foxes will be doing the teaching, that’s simple not the case.  However, the cartoons and the random stories in the sidebar may serve a purpose. Unlike the Head First books where images and captions are used to further explain the teachings, the cartoons and stories in Why’s Guide serve as intermission and offer your brain a brief moment of rest before the next Ruby concept is explained.  It’s not a bad strategy, but definitely not as effective as the Head First techniques.