Author Interview: Jeremy McAnallay - Ruby In Practice

With the recent release of Ruby in Practice, I've contacted both Assaf Arkin (@assaf) and Jeremy McAnally (@jm) to do some interviews about their book. These will be posted on my best posts about the best books page.

I posted Assaf's Interview last week. Here's what Jeremy had to say.

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This book has been a long time coming, how does it feel to see it finally hitting the book shelves?

Jeremy I don't think I can explain the feeling. I imagine it's similar to having a child, except mine is made of paper. So...awkward.

If you had a chance to start it today, what are the big things you'd want to address?

Jeremy I'd definitely want to look a little more at JRuby. It's risen up to be a serious force in enterprise development. But then again, it's a bit of a different beast, so perhaps it's left better to its own books.

What would you drop?

Jeremy I don't know that I'd drop anything. I feel like we've covered a lot of good ground, but if I could drop anything, it would probably be the Rails chapter. It's a good chapter with some good techniques, but there's no saying it won't be out of date by the time it hits the shelves.

What's the most exciting thing happening in Ruby and it's community today?

Jeremy Man, I'll say it again: Adhearsion. I don't think a lot of people have given it a serious look yet, but once you do, you'll see how awesome it is. I'd also say Rhodes could be a really cool thing (but I haven't had a chance to use it yet so I won't declare it awesome just yet :)).

What's next for you?

Jeremy I'm going to keep writing. My next project will be updating the Humble Little Ruby Book for 1.9 to be published on No Starch. I'm also writing some commercial software, more open source, and who knows what else?

Other than the fact that you're both great guys, why should Rubyists run out and shell out their hard earned money for this book?

Jeremy There has been a big knowledge gap for people who aren't in "Ruby jobs." They learn the language, they get excited, they dig what they're seeing, but they reach a point where they feel helpless. They don't really know what they can do with Ruby, how to do it, or if they figure it out, if they're doing it right. I think Ruby in Practice is a really solid collection of information that solves that problem, and I'm really happy to fill that gap.

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