Secrets!
The character descriptions have some tiny programmer jokes inside of them. The birthdates are the actual dates of birth for the technology, pet peeves and interests things that are associated with the technology and favorite sayings mostly slogans.
- Ruby. Mischief maker is someone who likes pranks, jokes and playfulness. Not evil or cruel. Based on the Ruby programming language, described as “simple, complex & natural.” More on Ruby.
- Robots. Android operating systems were named with dessert names (jellybean, icecream, donut..). There’s many different versions and people get frustrated with the sloppyness. Has grown fast. Based on Linux kernel. More on Android.
- Django and Python. Django is a framework built on top of Python, the programming language. Good with numbers! Python has very rigorous rules and was named after Monty Python. Make sure that the countable things Django likes correspond to the real mathematical concepts (“squared numbers, prime numbers, cubed numbers..”) Django being osmidig might be a little off, he’s rigid as in want’s to do things his way, doesn’t want to compromise, instead of clumsy. More on Django & Python.
- Penguins. Spaghetti code is code that is not very well structured. Penguins are all about freedom of choice and booksmarts. Linux is famous for it’s abbreviations. More on Penguins.
- Foxes. Mozilla builds ecosystems, hence the gardening. Sometimes there are bugs. Foxes also have an idealistic streak, just like Mozilla Foundation. Nightly versions are beta versions of Mozilla software. Spinning references to the logo, but also to the fact that Firefox gets stuck easily. More on Foxes.
- Snowleopard. Should sound a little obnoxious - and fighting with Robots refers to the wars Apple and Google have. Loneliness and mediation is a nod towards Apple’s walled garden thinking (or that they want to own everything from software to hardware and don’t allow a lot of remixing). Apple operating systems were named after cats in the past. More on Snowleopard.
Hello Ruby 1: Adventures in Coding
Chapter 1
Easter eggs:
- _why is the name of a famous Ruby developer and also a question good programmers ask a lot.
- The Instagram camera, Twitter birds in the mobile. Scratch cat on the wall, PHP elephant, Github octocat. Ada, Grace and Frances are Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper and Frances Allen, historic female programmers.
- Mount Fuji is a nod to Japan. Ruby’s pixel drawings on the floor include Mario castle, Creeper from Minecraft, a vomiting cat (Internet memes!).
Chapter 2
Easter eggs:
- White hat hackers are the good type of hackers, black hat hackers the baddies. Red Hat is a version of Linux. Reddit is a famous internet forum.
- Gems in programming are chunks of Ruby code other developers have written to make your life easier.
- 1600 Amphitheathre Parkway is Google´s real address.
Chapter 3
Easter eggs:
- The line drawings are visual representations of sorting algorithms: bubble sort and insertion sort. There´s also Venn diagrams, Konami code from Nintendo (try it on helloruby.com!), a few of _why´s animals, and the founders of Ruby (Yukihiro Matsumoto) and Rails (David Heinemeier Hanssen)
- The Gopher on the last page is the mascot of Go language by Google.
Chapter 4
Easter eggs:
- The grep, awk, chmod, bash etc. are meant to be penguin language and shouldn’t be translated. In reality they are unix commands.
- Linux and Unix are built around the principles of doing small tasks well and spreading the responsibility across different tiny programs.
Chapter 5
Easter eggs:
- Apple used to name their operating systems after big cats (Lion, Snowleopard, Leopard..) and now they are named after California mountains (Yosemite, El Capitain). Hence Snowleopards house. The apples on the tree and the crashing Mac icon are also references to Apple.
Chapter 6
Easter eggs:
- Foxes are inspired by Mozilla, which is an ecosystem company, cultivates a lot of open source work, which makes the Internet better, but sometimes includes also a lot of bugs.
- Notice Django peeking from the forest?
- Ruby´s instructions for the weeders are also visible in the pictures.
- Gopher is paying a visit to the computer.
Chapter 7
Easter eggs:
- "And recipes get better when you share them." A big ethos in the open source community.
- Ruby taking the "cupcake that has red sprinkles, yellow frosting and no strawberries" is one example of boolean algebra.
Chapter 8
Easter eggs
- Python community has PEPs (Python Enhancement Proposals) which are suggested ways of doing things. Ruby community doesn´t have these types of rules: everyone is encouraged to solve problems as they wish.
- Django is a framework built on top of Python the same way as Rails is a framework built on top of Ruby.
- Finland is big on the Everyman´s Right, which means that here forests actually belong to everyone :)
Chapter 9
Easter eggs:
- Notice the last use of rope?
Hello Ruby 2: The Great journey inside the Computer
The second book includes also hidden references. Here's at least a few of them! (Still missing at least the character descriptions, because I'm feeling a bit lazy :)
The cuckoo clock characters are Github octocat, Twitter bird and Scratch cat.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a wonderful novel by Philip K. Dick. That's why the robots are dozing off.
On the way to dad's study you can see pictures (from left to right) of: Bubble sort algorithm, Ada Lovelace, Venn Diagrams, Super Mario mushroom, Konami sode, Why´s Cat, Petersen graph, Susan Kare's icon work, Insertion Sort, Alan Turing, Dijsktra's algorithm, David Heinemeier Hanssen, Binary tree, Grace Hopper and Yukihiro Matsumoto.
Dad´s office has an R2D2 - also, notice the clock in the first & last page!
First spread of Ruby sitting inside the computer - can you recognise what the bits spell?
GPU borrows ideas from the 3D graphic communities: neural networks, Utah teapot, Stanford bunny and triangles.
When the RAM is too busy, Mac computers get a much feared spinning pinwheel
Mouse doesn't reconise the floppy drive anymore! It's a modern world.
Pictures from first Ruby book in the Mass Storage.
Code from original MacPaint in Pascal now open-sourced, and MacPaint itself.
Icons for Tetris, Ping Pong, Pacman, Minecraft - Ruby seems to like classics!
Sudo is a much loved command for Unix users.
Windows Ninja Cat is an easter egg in the Windows 10 OS.
The line of code Ruby tries to fix is the cursor code for the original MacPaint.
Computer namedrops famous fictional computers.
The third exercise library items include classics for any CS grad.