Hi,

# Now, I have another question....while eagerly awaiting my recently ordered
# book on Ruby to arrive, I am wondering about OOP in general. Never having
# attacked OO programming before, what do you folks recommend as a precursor
# before tackling Ruby regarding getting up to speed on OOP? Is Ruby easy
# enough to pick up for someone with no OOP background? If not, how/where do
# you recommend one start to learn OOP before taking on Ruby (books, web
# sites, mailing lists, courses, etc.)?

Lots of questions, infinite number of answers :-)

There are many places to start.

The first chapter of one of Bruce Eckels books (Thinking in ...) might be
useful. Look at www.mindview.net. I still find the short description of the
difference between procedural and object-oriented programming to be one of
the most comprehensive and clear descriptions I've ever read.

Another excellent description is Allen Holub's paper "What is an object?".
http://www.holub.com/goodies/what_is_an_object.html

Allen Holub also wrote an article in JavaWorld about why MVC
(Model-View-Controller) isn't particularly OO, when talking about UI design
and UI architecture in an OO World.
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-1999/jw-07-toolbox.html

Then there is alot more. Two often referenced resources are:

- www.cetus-links.org where there is always more to learn.

- Ward Cunninghams WikiWiki at www.c2.com is priceless, but also hard to
leave again once you've started...

Regarding Ruby and OOP, I don't think you could have chosen a more great
language for learning OOP. However, you will have a harder time getting the
best out of Ruby if you are not at least a bit familiar with OO.

Good luck to you!

Dennis Decker Jensen