| The Ruby Programming Language | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Flanagan, Yukihiro Matsumoto
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $22.09
You Save: $17.90 (45%)
Buy New/Used from $18.94
Avg. Customer Rating:   (20 reviews)
Sales Rank: 8599
Format: Illustrated
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 446
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0596516177
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.117
EAN: 9780596516178
ASIN: 0596516177
Publication Date: January 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Ruby Programming Language is the authoritative guide to Ruby and provides comprehensive coverage of versions 1.8 and 1.9 of the language. It was written (and illustrated!) by an all-star team: David Flanagan, bestselling author of programming language "bibles" (including JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and Java in a Nutshell) and committer to the Ruby Subversion repository. Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator, designer and lead developer of Ruby and author of Ruby in a Nutshell, which has been expanded and revised to become this book. why the lucky stiff, artist and Ruby programmer extraordinaire. This book begins with a quick-start tutorial to the language, and then explains the language in detail from the bottom up: from lexical and syntactic structure to datatypes to expressions and statements and on through methods, blocks, lambdas, closures, classes and modules. The book also includes a long and thorough introduction to the rich API of the Ruby platform, demonstrating -- with heavily-commented example code -- Ruby's facilities for text processing, numeric manipulation, collections, input/output, networking, and concurrency. An entire chapter is devoted to Ruby's metaprogramming capabilities. The Ruby Programming Language documents the Ruby language definitively 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 challenge their understanding and increase their mastery of the language.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
Excellent book December 14, 2008
This books explains a lot of details of the Ruby language you can't find in other place.
In my top 10 of all time... October 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Matz Gets It Right! October 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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!
The new go-to Ruby reference September 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Excellent Guide To Ruby September 17, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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