Submission + - Book Review: "TextMate: Power Editing for the
OSXCPA writes: "Full disclosure — I am reviewing "TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac" ("TPEFTM") by James Edward Gray II, published by The Pragmatic Programmers LLC, which I received from O'Reilly Media because I am the organizer of the Forest Park Ruby Meetup group. I received no compensation other than a copy of the book. Your reviewer is relatively new to Ruby and Rails, but studied C and Java at University using Emacs and NetBeans. He is not a professional developer by any means, so if he can make sense of a tool and follow a book or manual, newbies should have no trouble.
TextMate is a closed-source, GUI-based, extensible text editor that looks and behaves like a mashup of GNU Emacs ("Emacs") and NetBeans. This book is a primer and reference for TextMate. The blurb on the back of the book identifies the target audience as "Programmers, web designers and anyone else who regularly needs to work with text files on Mac OSX." After working with TextMate and reading through the book, the target audience is spot on. For example, the book briefly covers basic text editing, but provides in-depth information about basic operations (keyboard shortcuts, customizations, etc.) more advanced users will want to know and beginning users should know.
The book and online manual are targeted at completely different audiences. The online manual clocks in at 97 very terse pages (print-previewed as-is in Internet Explorer) while the book is 193 pages. Despite the 100+ page difference, the online manual is intended for the hardcore geek and covers much more detail with less hand-holding. The book is written in a conversational tone that occasionally borders on distracting (e.g., "The Ruby executor is quite clever...") but no more so than other Pragmatic Programmer books.
Beginners and road warriors will find the book very handy, literally. I am a 'dead tree' book fan, especially regarding 'how-to' style documents. I like my books splayed open on my desktop so I can go from book to book as I work. At 193 pages, 'TPEFTM' does not like to sit open and flat, but it does fit easily into a laptop bag. The book does not come with a CD, but all the code is available on-line. I prefer this delivery system since besides the fact that I hate ripping CD envelopes out of books, TextMate is only available as a download anyway. Links to various third-party automations, commands and code are included throughout the book, and most of these 'ad-ons' are some flavor of open-source.
The book is organized in order of increasing complexity, so it is a good introduction for someone new to IDE-based development in the 'big tool that does many things' school. TextMate consciously mirrors some of the complex functionality of Emacs, albeit in a more accessible form, and the book eases the reader into this world in small, logical steps.
This is not to say the hardcore geeks won't find the book useful. There are many tips and tricks throughout the book that help a reader work faster and more efficiently (read: lots of keyboard shortcuts and scripting).
I tend to put sticky notes in my books, especially manuals. Find a code recipe you like? Sticky-note the page. The book contains many shortcuts ("Command Line TextMate", "filename matching") that inspired sticky-notes for later tinkering. The ordering of the tools is such that the reader can sit at the keyboard and work the examples straight through, read it start to finish 'offline', or use it as a reference book. I would encourage at least one straight-through read to ensure seeing every passage once. Browsing the index, chapter or page headings will not yield everything on offer.
TextMate is primarily viewed as a Ruby on Rails development tool. The book expressly acknowledges this (the code examples are mostly written in Ruby), but provides detailed instructions for handling syntax highlighting in Java, C and other languages via Automations. I did not try this out, but the instructions seemed fairly straightforward — someone with the passion to write Haskell in TextMate could probably set it up.
When deciding whether to buy this book or not, the key consideration is 'what does the book give me that the online documentation does not?' Textmate has several features that require elaboration, especially for newer users. TextMate supports various 'shortcut' and 'script-like' technologies — code snippets, macros, automations and two different types of commands — plain *NIX shell commands and TextMate 'automation commands'. Chapters five through 12 cover these tools individually and when combined. Purists may say 'well just use Emacs and write LISP' but the TextMate framework is more accessible to someone with less developed skills (and with less time to develop LISP-Fu). It provides a stepping stone for ambitious users, but allows for 'just getting it done'. I found these chapters to be the most compelling in the book both because they cover the most valuable features of the TextMate environment and they introduce skills a newer user should have (*NIX scripting, pipes, etc.) and more experienced users already have, but will want to implement in the TextMate context. While the online manual covers the technologies in detail, the book provides a more structured, user friendly introduction with enough detail to get work done and lay the groundwork for future development.
For $29.95, I do not expect exhaustive coverage of every feature. While 800+ page tomes have a place, it is nice to have a manual that fits in my bag. The coverage is very good for the basics and excellent for the more complex scripting features. I would definitely recommend this book for newer users, anyone who wants a readable, portable guide and those who plan on using the advanced scripting features, especially in conjunction with preexisting *NIX system skills."
TextMate is a closed-source, GUI-based, extensible text editor that looks and behaves like a mashup of GNU Emacs ("Emacs") and NetBeans. This book is a primer and reference for TextMate. The blurb on the back of the book identifies the target audience as "Programmers, web designers and anyone else who regularly needs to work with text files on Mac OSX." After working with TextMate and reading through the book, the target audience is spot on. For example, the book briefly covers basic text editing, but provides in-depth information about basic operations (keyboard shortcuts, customizations, etc.) more advanced users will want to know and beginning users should know.
The book and online manual are targeted at completely different audiences. The online manual clocks in at 97 very terse pages (print-previewed as-is in Internet Explorer) while the book is 193 pages. Despite the 100+ page difference, the online manual is intended for the hardcore geek and covers much more detail with less hand-holding. The book is written in a conversational tone that occasionally borders on distracting (e.g., "The Ruby executor is quite clever...") but no more so than other Pragmatic Programmer books.
Beginners and road warriors will find the book very handy, literally. I am a 'dead tree' book fan, especially regarding 'how-to' style documents. I like my books splayed open on my desktop so I can go from book to book as I work. At 193 pages, 'TPEFTM' does not like to sit open and flat, but it does fit easily into a laptop bag. The book does not come with a CD, but all the code is available on-line. I prefer this delivery system since besides the fact that I hate ripping CD envelopes out of books, TextMate is only available as a download anyway. Links to various third-party automations, commands and code are included throughout the book, and most of these 'ad-ons' are some flavor of open-source.
The book is organized in order of increasing complexity, so it is a good introduction for someone new to IDE-based development in the 'big tool that does many things' school. TextMate consciously mirrors some of the complex functionality of Emacs, albeit in a more accessible form, and the book eases the reader into this world in small, logical steps.
This is not to say the hardcore geeks won't find the book useful. There are many tips and tricks throughout the book that help a reader work faster and more efficiently (read: lots of keyboard shortcuts and scripting).
I tend to put sticky notes in my books, especially manuals. Find a code recipe you like? Sticky-note the page. The book contains many shortcuts ("Command Line TextMate", "filename matching") that inspired sticky-notes for later tinkering. The ordering of the tools is such that the reader can sit at the keyboard and work the examples straight through, read it start to finish 'offline', or use it as a reference book. I would encourage at least one straight-through read to ensure seeing every passage once. Browsing the index, chapter or page headings will not yield everything on offer.
TextMate is primarily viewed as a Ruby on Rails development tool. The book expressly acknowledges this (the code examples are mostly written in Ruby), but provides detailed instructions for handling syntax highlighting in Java, C and other languages via Automations. I did not try this out, but the instructions seemed fairly straightforward — someone with the passion to write Haskell in TextMate could probably set it up.
When deciding whether to buy this book or not, the key consideration is 'what does the book give me that the online documentation does not?' Textmate has several features that require elaboration, especially for newer users. TextMate supports various 'shortcut' and 'script-like' technologies — code snippets, macros, automations and two different types of commands — plain *NIX shell commands and TextMate 'automation commands'. Chapters five through 12 cover these tools individually and when combined. Purists may say 'well just use Emacs and write LISP' but the TextMate framework is more accessible to someone with less developed skills (and with less time to develop LISP-Fu). It provides a stepping stone for ambitious users, but allows for 'just getting it done'. I found these chapters to be the most compelling in the book both because they cover the most valuable features of the TextMate environment and they introduce skills a newer user should have (*NIX scripting, pipes, etc.) and more experienced users already have, but will want to implement in the TextMate context. While the online manual covers the technologies in detail, the book provides a more structured, user friendly introduction with enough detail to get work done and lay the groundwork for future development.
For $29.95, I do not expect exhaustive coverage of every feature. While 800+ page tomes have a place, it is nice to have a manual that fits in my bag. The coverage is very good for the basics and excellent for the more complex scripting features. I would definitely recommend this book for newer users, anyone who wants a readable, portable guide and those who plan on using the advanced scripting features, especially in conjunction with preexisting *NIX system skills."
