intertwingly

Quite an interesting angle. But by now, every person that might have some interest in Ruby, will have bought a book, won’t they?

Hahaha. Good one ;)

I suppose you can make this comment, although your math is a little cavalier.  From 1500% to 800%, that’s about a 50% drop really.

And to put things in perspective, 800% on top of %1500 is an astounding 14300% growth.  At this rate percentages are more confusing than helpful and you might as well say that is has grown by 144 times!

Which is about a 1200% compounded annual growth rate.

Dunno if this matters that much but personally I’ve learned Python (almost a year and half ago) without the need to buy any book, there are a lot of great writings out there to look at and when you can get started by reading such a jewel as Dive Into Python you will hardly need something other beside in deep tutorials regarding more esoteric topics (metaclasses, descriptors...).

Personally I would really like to buy a copy of Dive Into Python that covers Python 2.5.

Michele, I think you’ll find that the same is true for many of the Rubyists.  I know it was certainly true for me.  I learned Ruby almost purely through mucking around with IRB.  I bought the books anyways.

Regarding the 800% drop, of course it happened.  Even the people who are running around pounding the pulpit and telling us that Ruby isn’t a fad and that its here to stay, they know full-well that some of Ruby’s popularity is due to hype and the fact that Rails was well-marketed.  Given that, there’s finite limit to how long massive growth can be sustained.  Frankly, I’m not worried about it.  Ruby has enough momentum to ensure a future and it suits my needs.  That’s all that matters to me.  Who cares how many books get sold (unless you’re an author)?

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From a one month old post written by Sam Ruby:

The difference isn’t the language, but the libraries. Outside of Weirich and DHH, the Ruby libraries are at best uneven.  This even includes libraries which are included with the language. Many seem t...

You certainly heard when Ruby book sales were growing 1500%, and 700%, but I thought I’d bring it to your attention that it has quietly dropped to 53%. I don’t bring this up to poke fun at the Ruby folks, but as supporting evidence for my own...

Me in 2007 : You certainly heard when Ruby book sales were growing 1500%, and 700% , but I thought I’d bring it to your attention that it has quietly dropped to 53% . I don’t bring this up to poke fun at the Ruby folks, but as supporting evidence...