This is a review I wrote on Amazon for Programming Collective Intelligence by Toby Segaran. I decided I should post a copy of it here for safe keeping. I hope to write a more detailed review of it at some point, but we’ll see how far that idea gets. I first learned of this book just a few weeks ago, shortly before it was available. I immediately read the sample chapter on the publisher’s website and was certain I had to get a hold of a copy.

This is a brief review I wrote of Practical Ruby for System Administration by André Ben Hamou. I was going to try and have it published elsewhere, but decided I should post it here. Ruby has been growing at a staggering rate of popularity over the last couple of years. In particular, its use as a web-programming language has probably not failed to get many peoples’ attention. However, given the precedence set by languages like Perl and Python for use in systems administration related work and the undisputed reality that Ruby has been influenced by these predecessors (in particular Perl), it should come as no surprise that its growth in the sysadmin world has been similarly on the upswing.