Hello Ruby

What Hacker News says

1. herbstJan 2024
   I was developing mostly PHP, some bash, some Java and kinda liked ruby but could only partially feel it.

   Until I read "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby", from start to end, I completely fell in love with programming. Everything before was just getting to this point.

   The documentation and community is what has drawn me into Ruby. The language and now very major ecosystem is why I still stay :)

   Hello Ruby by Linda Luikas is one of the sweetest 'programming books' I've ever seen.

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2. theshrike79Apr 2023
   The Hello Ruby books are _amazing_. They won actual design awards: http://www.helloruby.com

   The girl in the books is just named Ruby, the books really don't have a connection to Ruby the Programming Language.

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3. echoradioDec 2021
   Linda Liukas’ “Hello Ruby” books are wonderful for introducing programming concepts.

   https://www.helloruby.com/

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4. niemenmaaDec 2021
   There is the world of Hello Ruby [0], book(s) and other learning material translated into 20 languages. I think they are for younger kids. There is also some material for teachers.

   [0]:https://www.helloruby.com/

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5. vagesJun 2021
   Most of the books have been low-key attempts from programmer parents, probably to get their own children into programming. They were posted on different forums, and I have a hard time finding my way back to them.

   The example that I think illustrates my point best is: http://arthur-johnston.com/hacker_writes_a_childrens_book/ (which was posted here in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15879519) The book works well as entertainment for grown-up programmers: "G is for Garbage Collector/when something's no longer needed/it frees up the memory/so your program is speeded." You can look inside the book on Amazon for more examples. I judge this rhyme as too advanced for any child below 8 that I've read aloud to. Most theories about cognitive development agree with Piaget (1896–1980) in that children have a hard time grasping difficult abstract concepts before the age of 12–13, so there is at least some "scientific backing" to my hunch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_development#Concrete... (This is only a hunch though; the children I've read aloud to are all picked from the same group – children of family and friends.)

   My observation is that children seem to need _lots_ of concrete verbal and visual imagery in order to stay interested. You can also get away with more abstract themes if the actual text is lyrically well-crafted, like Dr. Seuss' books (or André Bjerke's children's rhymes in Norwegian, my mother tongue). The most successful attempts at teaching programming to children that I've seen, seem to give the children a lot of practical tasks they can work on (e.g. the Hello Ruby book series). You also have some programming elements in Minecraft that children could pick up, because the concepts are implemented as concrete objects.

   All of this makes me suspect that the main audience for these "children's books" teaching programming is adults that already know a fair bit about the subject. And that's completely all right by me, because it gives the books traction and brings the book's readers entertainment.

   PS: You also have the Javascript/HTML/CSS for babies series, which are only jocularly presented as children's books: https://imgur.com/eOYc8fC

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6. ZhylFeb 2021
   Firstly, this is frikking hilarious. I giggled so loudly while reading it that my girlfriend asked what I was laughing at and she was so captivated by it that I had to sit on the couch with her reading it, flicking to the next page of the downloadable whenever she'd finished.

   Secondly, I applaud the style/premise of the book. Cats especially are aiming at an underserved demographic that would absolutely be interested in programming but do not have the same number of and level of quality of 'ins' (ways of getting into programming) as other demographics. Along the same lines I would love to see 'scripting for Sims 4 builders' or 'Love Calculator and other scriots for your next sleepover'.

   Thirdly, I really like the way that this is pitched. I feel like so few tutorials give a high level overview of programming rather than diving into specifics of languages. I can only think of "Hello Ruby" as being analogous, although I'm sure others exist.

   Finally, I love the art style. Not much more to be said than that.

   I can't really think of anything critical to add.

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