> My favorite example of this (from the Ruby community, of course) is Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. If you're a Rubyist, you already know what this is, but if you're not, it's a legendary tome in the Ruby community.
Not sure that's a great example, in my view. I remember when I was learning Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why guide it's great!!" It was a mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all. There was probably good content in there, but the interspersed poorly drawn comics and nonsense asides/tangents made it impossible to follow. Maybe it was great for some people but it did not fit my learning style at all. I expect a vanilla introduction, a clear progression through control structures, data types, keywords, variables, constants, operators, etc. and a concise review at the end of each chapter, structured reference at the end, etc. In other words, a plain vanilla "Pragmatic Programmer" or "O'Reilly" style guide.
> Having a unique voice is one of the most important things you can do to make your content stand out in a sea of "blah". It's what will make readers remember you and keep coming back.
> I remember when I was learning Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why guide it's great!!" It was a mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all.
I had the same experience (started Rubying in late 2015). I had much more success with RubyMonk, Metaprogramming Ruby 2, and some other "Ruby for Perl hackers" blog posts and such.
Not sure that's a great example, in my view. I remember when I was learning Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why guide it's great!!" It was a mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all. There was probably good content in there, but the interspersed poorly drawn comics and nonsense asides/tangents made it impossible to follow. Maybe it was great for some people but it did not fit my learning style at all. I expect a vanilla introduction, a clear progression through control structures, data types, keywords, variables, constants, operators, etc. and a concise review at the end of each chapter, structured reference at the end, etc. In other words, a plain vanilla "Pragmatic Programmer" or "O'Reilly" style guide.
> Having a unique voice is one of the most important things you can do to make your content stand out in a sea of "blah". It's what will make readers remember you and keep coming back.
Agreed that it's memorable though...