Suppose a student sought a Crystal textbook, then found the Pragmatic Bookshelf work slender (or perhaps behind the time), and the Packt Publishing offering guilty of association with Packt Publishing.
Maybe the student thinks: “Given the similar syntax, a Ruby book could be helpful, and there are many of those”. Could any Ruby book be recommended for hewing more closely to Crystal than others?
I suppose the answer that fitts best would be:
If they know no ruby at all, they can start learning ruby basics with ruby books.
Then start just using Crystal, possibly buying the crytal book.
If they already know ruby, then see above. get the crystal book and/or online resources + just use the language and ask questions + look at code.
I don’t think you would find a Ruby book helpful to introduce yourself to Crystal. If anything, we need better promotion of @Blacksmoke16’s excellent book written on Crystal.
Ruby and Crystal have similar syntax, which is why Crystal is pleasurable to work with, but they ultimately work entirely differently.
I bought the Packt pub Crystal book a few days ago after a couple of weeks only using the resources on the Crystal Website. I find it well written, and within the first few pages had learned some things about Crystal that I hadn’t known. I’d recommend it if you have the means to purchase it.
The Dietrich book just showed up in O’Reilly’s e-library!