PickAxe tutorial (was What is the bes Ruby's book for beginners?)

On May 15, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:
>
> On the other hand, a lot of folks seem to like the tutorial parts of
> the pickaxe, and the new O'Reilly "The Ruby Programming Language" has
> very little in the way of a tutorial but is a GREAT reference.

This is a topic that's been vexing me a lot in the last few weeks.

I'm working on the third edition, and I keep going back and forth on  
the tutorial section. I personally like the quirkiness of doing things  
like describing classes before expressions, simply because it gives us  
a vocabulary to talk about things. But I know other people feel its  
the wrong way around--explanations should build bottom up.

I've been trying it both ways, and I'm frankly stalled. I'd be  
interested to hear opinions. Keep as is (perhaps losing the jukebox,  
and adding a chapter on basic OO for people coming from procedural  
languages), or reorder it into something more conventional?

Dave