The Ruby Programming Language

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Originally planned as a second edition to Ruby classic, Ruby In A Nutshell, The Ruby Programming Language is a new book by David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoto (a.k.a. Matz - creator of Ruby) and published by O'Reilly. The book covers both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 and with its esteemed authors and technical approach, is sure to become a new "Bible" for Ruby developers.

As of the start of 2008 this book is REALLY fresh and up to date. Its style is very direct and matter-of-fact; well suited for existing Ruby developers and proficient developers coming from other languages. The examples are clear and logical and the explanations concise; this is a well edited and authoritative book.

The structure of the book is a delight with ten well-defined chapters (with titles such as Reflection and Metaprogramming, Statements and Control Structures, and Expressions and Operators) that each contain a tree of sections. Consider Chapter 4, Expressions and Operators. A sample dive down to section 4.5.5.2 takes us through 4.5, Assignments; 4.5.5, Parallel Assignment; and finally to 4.5.5.2, One lvalue, multiple rvalues. This is a breath of fresh air in a Ruby reference work.

The only downside, in terms of the thousands who might be browsing Amazon looking for a single Ruby book to start off with, is that this book is so well focused on documenting the core elements of the Ruby language, it doesn't work either as a tutorial / beginner's introduction to Ruby, or as an exhaustive reference work (as, on both fronts, the Pickaxe attempts to be.) This lack of dilution may be an ultimate strength, however, since anyone above the station of "beginner" will be able to learn Ruby thoroughly from this book, use it as a general reference, and then be able to use the exhaustive documentation that comes with Ruby itself to cover the standard library and built-in classes.

In conclusion, whether you're an existing developer or a newcomer to Ruby, you need just three things to be up and running with Ruby in the book / documentation department. Buy this, the Ruby Way (by Hal Fulton), and learn how to use the documentation that comes with Ruby.

This book will act as the "Bible" for Ruby, the Ruby Way will make you an expert, and learning how to use the documentation that comes with Ruby will mean you're not using information that's out of date within a couple of years. The perfect combo! It'll last you for years.

'The Ruby Programming Language' is one of 'those' O'Reilly books that become staples in the family of GREAT texts that have come before. At 400+ pages, the following content is discussed:

01. Intro
02. Structure of Ruby Programs
03. Datatypes & Objects
04. Expressions & Operators
05. Statements & Control Structures
06. Methods, Procs, Lambdas, Closures
07. Classes & Modules
08. Reflection & Metaprogramming
09. Ruby Platform
10. Ruby Environment

Logically laid out, wonderful writing, clear and concise examples with a length that is 'just right' (this is so hard to not find bloated books) this is perfect for those that know some Ruby and/or programming in general. If you are new to software development, this book probably is NOT for you as it's not a "learning" text. There are other Ruby books that cover said topic though so make sure to pick those up as well.

Awesome job O'Reilly for this relatively new and fast growing language that is used on the web and wherever you want!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This book is quite simply one of the finest software development books ever written. The style, the length, the scope, and the structure are all absolutely perfect. The balance creates a reading experience that seemingly opens a channel to your brain and feeds the information in.

Flanagan is a master author of technical books, especially languages. His JavaScript book is equally well done. Matsumoto's unique technical mastery here leaves no stone unturned. And even the artwork by "why the lucky stiff" added a fun element that just rounded out the book as the best in its class.

If I could forget the whole thing, just so I could read it again, I would. It is that good.

Like the book says in the beginning: "Ruby is not a simple language... and this book is not a simple book. It is intended for experienced programmers... and are willing to read carefully and thoughtfully to achieve this goal."
Ruby is still relatively new, so there are not a ton of books from which to choose. But you gotta figure that one by the creator of the language (Y. Matsumoto) and the author of the popular "Java in a Nutshell" (D. Flanagan) is bound to be good - and it is.
It's a simple, no-nonsense text that will answer just about any question you might have about the Ruby programming language. This and the more-conversational-in-tone "The Ruby Way" by Hal Fulton make for an unbeatable pair.

I only began learning Ruby in earnest a few weeks ago, and I really appreciate how quickly I can go in depth with this book. I examined many well-known Ruby language offerings at the bookstore, and there really was no comparison in terms of readability and comprehensiveness.

True, the book can be fairly exhaustive in detailing langauge specifics; no doubt this will turn some readers off. The problem with other books is that they often avoid detail at the expense of clarity. For my money, this book makes learning the minutae required for competent programming that much easier, by being so complete and well-organized. There's no need for readers of this book to turn to any sort of "supplementary text," as is so often the case with less well thought-out books.

One caveat: if you are coming to Ruby as a very inexperienced programmer, then this book is probably not the place to start (perhaps try "Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional" by Apress? I haven't read it, but it seems to have good reviews...)

Originally a "Nutshell" offering, written by Ruby creator Yukihiro Matsumoto, the new edition (written along with David Flanagan) retains the laudable grittiness of a "Nutshell" book, but can be read cover-to-cover. The very first chapter takes readers on a tour of the language, then presents a nifty Sudoku solver consisting of just 129 lines. It's startling how well the program reads, and how quickly one begins comprehending Ruby code. The approach gives readers a feel for Ruby's succinct, efficient syntax, as well as its expressiveness and power.

Highly recommended.

For a long time now Dave Thomas' Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition (aka. The Pickaxe) has been the standard in the Ruby community as the book to learn Ruby from. Unfortunately the Pickaxe is not the best programming book ever written. In fact, its bulk and slowness almost killed my inspiration to learn Ruby. I respect Dave Thomas a lot for what he does for the Ruby community but the Pickaxe and I just did not click.

Since I didn't find the Pickaxe to be excellent reading material, I had been eagerly anticipating David Flanagan's The Ruby Programming Language to come out and unseat The Pickaxe as the de facto book to recommend to newcomers to Ruby.

I am happy to say that The Ruby Programming Language did not disappoint. I picked up this book solely expecting to just review it since I already comfortable programming in Ruby. However, once I started reading the book I found myself frequently learning things about Ruby that I didn't know before. Not like little things either like, "oh that's interesting". I'm talking significant things like "holy crap that's sweet!".

This book covers both Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9. Initially this concerned me because as impressive as it is, it must have been quite a headache for the authors and was not sure how they were going to pull it off. It turns out to be pretty much a non-issue. The authors make a note of what is 1.8 or 1.9 only and it does not disturb the flow of the book since it doesn't come up too frequently. I do hope though that after Ruby 1.9 stable is released they upgrade the book and tear out all the 1.8 specific material. Since I currently use 1.8 on a daily basis I don't mind having 1.8 material in there but after everything has shifted to 1.9 it would be rather irksome.

The style of the book is fairly straightforward. It starts with an introduction to how Ruby programs work and then goes into an explanation of Ruby datatypes and objects. The later chapters cover advanced topics like reflection and metaprogramming. The authors opted not to go the tutorial route, which I think, was a good approach since the book is not designed to be an "intro to programming" text.

In the preface of the book, the authors state:
> [The Ruby Programming Language] is loosely modeled after the classic C Programming Language (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software) by Kernighan and Ritchie and aims to document the Ruby language comprehensively but without the formality of a language specification. It is written for experienced programmers who are new to Ruby, and for current Ruby programmers who want to take their understanding and mastery of the language to the next level.

O'Reilly is hoping that The Ruby Programming Language becomes the equivalent of K&R's The C Programming Language for Ruby and I hope it succeeds. I think that every language needs their own K&R book for people to turn to as the definitive authority. That's something that I feel like the Java programming language never had and it creates something of a hurdle when browsing for a Java book.

The third edition of the Pickaxe is in beta and will be coming out soon. I really hope it makes a strong showing when it hits the press because after the bangup job Flanagan and Matz did with The Ruby Programming Language, there is no reason to look at the Pickaxe till then.

The Ruby Programming Language Book is a very good book for understanding the mysteries of Ruby Programming. As the book's back cover states, it is intended for someone that has either had experience with programming or has went through one of the Ruby Introductory Books. It shows side by side the differences between 1.8 and 1.9. It takes various aspects of the language and first explains what it going on. Then it gives you examples to clearify the explaination. It also gives you help with some of the common Ruby Programming Errors. All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone, who is serious about using Ruby.

I bought this book after reading the other reviews here. All the people I know personally who work with Ruby learned from the Pickaxe but from the reviews I came to the conclusion that this could be actually a better book for learning the language. So, I didn't read the Pickaxe and cannot really make a comparison but from what I heard and comparing with this one I would get the Pickaxe if I should choose again.

After finishing reading this book I can say that there are a lot of topics that I really don't remember anymore and lots of doubts that I still have. The major flaw here is that there are no exercises anywhere in the book. All the best programming books I read in the past have very good exercises to evaluate what you've learned (I could give as examples Learning Perl, C++ Programming Language, Core Java, etc). I think that without exercising what you learned it's really hard to judge how much you have really learned.

Another thing which is not described in the book is how to organize a big project. I'm used to working in large projects in C and C++ and I really have no idea of how to organize a large project in Ruby, how to organize classes in files, etc. I will start studying Rails now, and will get the Rails code and read it to make sense of how to organize a large project but be aware that this is not described here.

Also some sections of the book, are really "dry", like the one who talks about functional programming which is really hard to follow (this one is the first that came to my mind but there are a lot of sections which are hard to follow or don't make a lot of sense when reading first time). These sections are clearly targeted at advanced Ruby programmers.

I'll rate this book with 4 stars because despite the flaws I mentioned, the explanation of the language in general is really good.

This book is focused, straight to the point, dense, fun to read and enjoyable with it's strong logical flow of ideas, language construct details and intuitive presentation of the core Ruby language features and fundamentals that take the reader very confidently into a knowledge rich journey inside the programming language of Ruby and its core philosophy only to yield the willing reader an expert Ruby programmer.

Right from the first chapter:introduction. You are hooked! time passes by and you never notice, as the elite writers of this book (Why the lucky stiff, Flanagan, and Matz), concisely and deeply describe the language and then start enjoying us with more elaborate knowledge on Ruby structure, Data types and objects, expressions and operators, control structure, methods, classes, and reflection in the following chapters.

May I say that, with all the known elegance and appeal of the Ruby language, this stunning book comes with it's unique clear style of writing, richness and deep coverage while concise, that is in my opinion the best ever written programming language book so far.

Remarkable!

This book does for Ruby what Kernighan & Ritchie's "The C Programming Language" did for C. It provides a concise, accessible introduction to the Ruby programming language.

Starting out with a tour of Ruby, you are then taken on a deeper dive into chapters on "Structure and Execution", "Datatypes and Objects", "Expressions and Operators", and "Statements and Control Structures". Some of the real power of Ruby is revealed in chapters on "Methods, Procs, Lambdas, and Closures", "Classes and Modules", and "Reflection and Metaprogramming".

The book closes with chapters on "The Ruby Platform" and "The Ruby Environment". The chapter on the Ruby Platform is like a condensed API guide to Ruby's core library. The chapter on the Ruby Environment will help you navigate through the Ruby interpreter's command-line arguments and environment variables as well as a grab-bag of extra Ruby topics that were not covered earlier in the book.

The book is well organized and easy to read. Each chapter is peppered with code samples. If you are serious about learning Ruby, get this book! It sits on my bookshelf, next to a copy of the Pickaxe book and The Ruby Way. Bonus: each chapter of the book starts with a work of art by why the lucky stiff!

Really found this to be an excellent guide to the Ruby programming language. This is definitely not just the API rehashed in print.

The difference in the style of this book and some others, in my opinion, is the difference between a map and a travel guide. A map may show you what and where things are, and may even be useful for figuring out how to go between locations, a travel guide will often include maps plus the inside scoop on what is interesting.

This book is similar. The writing style is like having an expert sit down and explain to you the various facets of the language, how to use them, points that are notable, etc. And all of this content is within a reasonable 400 pages.

Highly recommended.

I wish every book about a programming language was written like this one:

First, it is fairly compact and doesn't waste space (and your time) explaining to you what is a byte or a register, like some 800 page "volumes about everything" do. It correctly assumes that the reader is a programmer and explains the language, not the programming.

Second, it covers Ruby in depth. Read this book and you'll easily understand the most craziest Ruby code examples that could be found inside of Rails and other popular libraries. Moreover, I've found a few tricks in the book that I don't believe I saw in the wild.

And finally, author's language is very clean, free of buzzwords and needless repetitions. As always with O'Reilly books, this one is also very neatly structured and makes an excellent reference book.

Buy it.

This is an excellent reference book on Ruby, if you already know Ruby this book will help you a lot, but if you are looking for a tutorial on Ruby this book should not be your first choice.

This book (TRPL) represents a great alternative for those who are not entirely satisfied with the "Pickaxe", as it goes into much more detail in some areas of Ruby. After reading both books, my general impression is that the Pickaxe can be seen as a lighter reference and TRPL as a more in-depth description. In that sense they complement each other. Make no mistake, though: this book is not a comprehensive reference for the standard library (just as "The C programming language" is not a complete reference for the C standard library).

i write in ruby for about a year or two, mostly as a hoby. after i wrote a lot of simple and complex programs, there were still some basic (or not so basic) things that about ruby that were not so clear to me. this book made it all clear. all i can say about this book is that it is a great book and i recommend it to anyone programming in ruby.

Very, very dense reading, but very complete as well. Aspects of the language that were only glanced over (or even ignored entirely) by the "pickaxe" book are covered in great detail. The only downside is that you have to look at several of those horrible high school notebook doodles the wannabe Murakami "Why" produces whenever people convince him that he's either "clever" or "talented."

This is well written, well organized, and covers the whole core language. It isn't a cookbook, and it isn't an API reference, but for what it is, it's excellent.

The organization makes sense, the index is usable, and the writing is precise enough to leave no ambiguity.

My only complaint would be too much space spent on differences between 1.8.6 and 1.9, and too much attention to text encodings.

"The Ruby Programming Language" is everything you'd hope for from an O'Reilly book that is co-written by the language creator and the author of "Java in a Nutshell." This is a well-written, concise, and thorough guide the Ruby language.

Unlike the Pickaxe, which tries to be everything from an OOP introduction to a complete library reference, this book focuses on concisely documenting the Ruby language. If you're looking to learn how to program, look elsewhere - the Pickaxe is a much better choice. On the other hand, if you're already familiar with OOP concepts, this book (along with [...]) is all you really need to understand the language.

Of note, the book is also very current, covering both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9. As such things go, this is about as future-proof as it gets - it will remain current for years.

I can't really stress enough how well-written this book is. The authors don't overwhelm you with jargon, nor do they bury important details between fluff and analogies - I find it to be the perfect balance of density and legibility. Seldom do I find technical references such a joy to read.

In short, if you work with Ruby (or plan to in the future), you really should buy this book. You won't regret it.

It was with delight that I ordered this book. Finally, it's here! There have been other books... but leave it to O'Reilly to put out one this good. The authors have done a great job. And you gotta love the illustrations!

Very small complaint: I wish there was a bit of a story about the Ruby language in here. I learned more about the birds on the cover than the history of the language!

Kudos: Never once do they mention "chunky bacon" in this book. THANK YOU.

If you already know Ruby and want kick the best out of it, this is your chaperone.

No-nonsense info, concise & useful examples, a writing style clear as the sun.

Finally we have the The Ruby Book!

This is such a great book... The only shame is it took so long to come out. Like many others I struggled through the Pickaxe (a so-so book, to be avoided), then discovered enlightenment in Hal Fulton's The Ruby Way.

This book is all of those books and more. Everything a good programmer needs to kick butt in Ruby is in the 400 pages of this tome. It is extremely readable. I was able to get through it in about a week and a half, and loved every minute of it.

This is the only book you will ever need for Ruby.

The Ruby Programming Language is my new favorite Ruby book. I personally think it is a better text than the famous "Pickaxe" book. While the Pickaxe has a great class/module reference (it's over half of the book, after all), the actual explanations of how Ruby works in The Ruby Programming Language are clearer and go into much more depth. Most importantly for me, The Ruby Programming Language covers some of the more complicated topics, such as metaprogramming, with MUCH more depth. From the Pickaxe alone I had trouble understanding how some of these Ruby features worked. But with this new book, it's much clearer.

If you want the defacto Ruby book, this is it.

I picked this book up at a local Borders. As with most OReily books, it is well done.

Each section of the book is well written, and most important to me, there are cogent examples through out, as well as in depth explanations of various facets of not only 1.8.x but 1.9 where they differ.

I initially learned Ruby from a "Beginning" book about 2 years ago. This book helped take my knowledge to the next level, so certainly for that reason alone, it is highly recommended. But additionally, it serves as a great reference.

For me, it's a must have addition to my Ruby Library. Recommended.

One of the best programming books that i've read in a long time. Its an easy read for any level programmer.

Ruby was my first dynamic language, and I almost don't want to go back to anything else!

The book contains many great examples, clearly explained.

after reading the book it's the first on my recommendation list to any ruby newcommer programmer or experienced programmer who want to master the language. it's comprehensive and covers the syntactic structure of the language to the very advanced topics like Metaprogramming and Domain specific languages aka DSLs and fun to read and easy to follow its short tutorials written by yukihiro matz -the creator of the ruby- and David flangan - professional author well known for his book JavaScript the definitive guide - the book is divided into 10 chapters to fill 430 pages each chapter focus and dive deeply in specific part of the language mentioning the differences between ruby 1.8 & 1.9 when necessary :
Chapter 1 => Introduction .
Chapter 2 => The structure & execution of ruby programms
Chapter 3 => DataTypes & OBjects
Chapter 4 => Expressions & operators
Chapter 5 => Statements & control structures
Chapter 6 => Methods & Procs
Chapter 7 => Classes & Methods
Chapter 8 => Reflection & metaProgramming
Chapter 9 => The ruby platform
Chapter 10 => The Ruby environement
if you want to master the ruby programming language, absolutely this is the book for you, each chapter you read you'll get used to the language as the examples are short and explaining each features of the languages and all the possible errors that might happen and what works good and what works better , Chapter 9 near the end of the book is a reference of the the Ruby Core library API covering Strings & text processing, Regular expressions, Numbers & Math, Dates & times, The Enumerable module & the Array, Hash & Set collections, I|O & files, networking and finally Threading and concurrency accompanied by tons of short examples ... recommended ;)

I consider this my best reference for Ruby work. There are quite a few good books, many for novices and a few good ones at my intermediate level. This one ties together language basics, is a solid reference, and includes most advanced topics.

Functions both as a textbook and a fairly "quick" reference. Kudos to the authors for their clarity and just the right amount of unambiguous detail.

This is a fantastic book for beginning rubyists that have a decent programming background with another language. I would still recommend reading the Pick Axe, but once your done with that, get ready to blow your mind with all the cool things this book shows you that they couldn't fit into the Pick Axe. Its clear explanations and code examples make it a breeze to go through. I wish more programming books where written like this. It is definitely worth the price of admission. You won't be sorry

feels like i am reading the C programming language book by K&R ... the style is very similar ... although i am in for a paradigm shift ... also, my way of learning is to try to grasp it all at once ... so, i am a bit slower than (a lot actually)i had expected to finish the book ... still only in the 4th chapter after 2 weeks

This books explains a lot of details of the Ruby language you can't find in other place.

This book is everything a technical book should be! Clear, succinct, not too big ... not too small. Probably not for beginners, but for anyone intermediate and above, this will be the first and only book you need. The authors say they based it on "The C Programming Language" by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie and I think they've achieved the same sort of quality. You don't need a tomb to learn a programming language, you just need an author/authors who know how to elucidate their subject. A win for the forest amongst the trees ...

This book is both a great primer and reference while starting out with Ruby. The text is clearly written with little 'fluff.'

This is one of those books that you just need to have. I have both this and the 1.8 Pick Axe book (Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition). I use this one for quick look-ups as it's much smaller and packed with good information.

H

This is a great book for experienced programmers trying to learn Ruby. It doesn't waste time explaining concepts you already know, or setting up silly examples, it just explains the language and how to use it.

The writing is clear and does a good job explaining even the more complicated features of the language. The code snippets are helpful and to the point. The pace is quick, but it covers everything well.

It also does a good job of pointing out differences between Ruby versions 1.8 and 1.9.