Yes, reading is certainly not a bad thing... :)  There just comes a  
time for application and I've already read parts of various Ruby  
books and of course have a CS background, so the trick now is to  
apply it and learn it better in context.  I would love to have  
pickaxe sitting beside me while I'm actually working on something  
rather than reading for the sake of absorbing, which for me doesn't  
work nearly as well.

-George




On Feb 15, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Charlie Bowman wrote:

I completely agree.  I wasn't putting down reading.  I'm always reading
at least two books.  The point I was trying to make was that reading
will help much more if you try to apply the theory and concepts you find
in the book to real life problems.  I can honestly say that the
"Pragmatic Programmer" changed my coding style completely!

On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 23:51 +0900, James Edward Gray II wrote:

> On Feb 15, 2006, at 8:31 AM, Charlie Bowman wrote:
>
>> I usually try to find a small tool that I would like to have and then
>> create it.
>
> That's great advice.
>
>> You'll learn a lot more by writing code than reading it.
>
> I feel reading is a little under-valued and can be extremely helpful
> to your growth as a programmer.  Check out the book Code Reading
> sometime.  I sure learned a lot from it.
>
> James Edward Gray II
>
>