Peter Cooper - UK Author, Entrepreneur, Ruby and Web App Guy

Peter Cooper is a digital jack of all trades based in the north of England. He is author of Beginning Ruby, published by Apress, creator of numerous Web properties and technologies, and an entrepreneur who sold two startups in 2007.

His specialist subjects are writing, editing, software development, Web 2.0, RSS, UNIX, and Web application architecture and deployment. He can be contacted at @petercooper.co.uk.

Works

Beginning Ruby

Beginning Ruby is a book for new Ruby programmers of all skill levels. It walks through Ruby's core functionality and its key libraries and frameworks (including Rails) in an instructional manner. It was published by Apress in March 2007 and is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

I really enjoyed your book Beginning Ruby book - it was much better than the Pragmatic Programming Ruby one we thought.
—Chris Bartlett - Incisive Media (April 2008)

Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper is a good read. Really loving Ruby.
—Sorensblade (Twitter) (April 2008)

I think it is the best "beginning" programming book out there. The examples are fresh and completely usable. And it doesn't feel "dated" like some programming books I have read in the past. This book is a breath of fresh air.
—Peter Gilbert (March 2008)

Beginning Ruby is easily one of the most readable and clearest technical texts I have encountered in a while.
—Michael McKee

[A]s funny as the Poignant Guide is, I was still just not getting it. Until I found Peter Cooper's excellent Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional. I know, you're thinking "Is she seriously talking about a computer book right now?" But this book is like a handy dandy paper-and-glue lifesaver. It's the first guide I've seen aimed at people who are new to programming that is ACTUALLY useful for people new to programming. These concepts are sinking in. I am starting to see the light.
—Laura K (February 2008)

You don't hear this often about programming books, but I must say the Beginning Ruby book is quite a good read.
—David Mantilla (January 2008)

[C]oming to Ruby via Rails made things a bit harder than they should've been. Had I been sane at the time, I would've read a good chunk of a book like Beginning Ruby first, before attempting to jump into Rails.
—Shanti A. Braford (December 2007)

I think Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional is a better first Ruby book than the venerable Pickaxe. [..] If you want to learn Ruby, Beginning Ruby is the book to buy.
—Larry Wright

This book belongs in the hands of anyone and everyone who is serious about learning the Ruby programming language.
—Robert J. Boyken

This is the book I wish I had bought before I bought the pick-axe book.
—M. Reardon (on Amazon.co.uk)

[T]his is not just an introduction to Ruby. Pretty much every technology that is linked to Ruby in some way is discussed [..] The author, Peter Cooper, is obviously a well-rounded Ruby developer, and his enthusiasm for the topic shines through. And with almost twice the number of pages as the other [books] reviewed here, his is easily the best value of the three.
—Andy Hudson, Linux Format

Peter Cooper's Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional has two audiences, novices with no programming experience who want to learn Ruby as their first programming language, and veterans who want to add Ruby to their programming toolkit. Cooper's response to this challenge is a solid entry in the limited arena of Ruby tutorials.
—Tim Hunter

I've learned a great deal very quickly, I'd recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to learn Ruby
—J. Whelpley (on Amazon.com)

Ruby Inside

Ruby Inside is a blog targeting Ruby and Rails developers. It launched in May 2006, and now has over 15000 subscribers (as of May 2008). Ruby Inside is cited by most prominent Ruby developers, and the official Ruby site itself, as one of the top Ruby blogs.

SwitchPipe

SwitchPipe is a proof of concept Web application process manager and request proxy that makes it as easy as possible to deploy Web applications such as Rails apps. Released into the public domain and now used on several deployments (that I've heard of!)

Feed Digest (sold in 2007 - now Feed Informer)

Feed Digest (now Feed Informer) provided feed combination, syndication, and publishing services with over 250 million digests served per month. Established July 2005, commercial users included NASA, The Denver Post, MIT, Smithsonian Institution, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Feed Digest was sold as a going concern on August 1 2007.

RubyFlow

RubyFlow is a Ruby community link blog launched on April 9, 2008. In its first day it had 5500 pageviews and 700 RSS subscribers. Now it boasts just over 2000 subscribers and approximately 1000 visitors a day.

Code Snippets (sold in 2007)

Code Snippets is a tag-driven site for coders to paste and track commonly used snippets of code in a del.icio.us-esque way. Launched in 2005, the site grew to over 3000 snippets and 250,000 pageviews per month before it was sold to DZone in February 2007.

Ruby In Practice

I wrote the "Indexing and Searching" chapter for Ruby in Practice, a Ruby book put together under the caretakership of Jeremy McAnally and Assaf Arkin, published by Manning, and due in print form later in 2008. The early access edition is already available as an e-book (PDF).

Design Patterns in Ruby

I was a technical reviewer for Design Patterns in Ruby, a book by Russ Olsen, covering the implementation of Gang of 4 design patterns in the Ruby programming language.

MacYay!

MacYay is a blog targeting new and intermediate Apple Mac users. It launched in February 2008, but is now on hiatus.

Other

Since first getting into Web development in 1995, I've been involved with lots of projects; some key ones include: GoDefy, Bamboo Clothing, Domains Are Free, WebDeveloper.com, Calco Technical Recruitment, Cannon Cars.

Peter Cooper (Blog)

Works

Beginning Ruby

Ruby Inside

SwitchPipe

Feed Digest (sold in 2007 - now Feed Informer)

RubyFlow

Code Snippets (sold in 2007)

Ruby In Practice

Design Patterns in Ruby

MacYay!

Other

Presence & Profiles

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Media Mentions & Publicity

Tools and Other Misc Stuff

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