Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide: Amazon.ca: David Thomas, Andrew Hunt: Books

Product Description

From Amazon

"Big in Japan" was a pejorative term for failed pop musicians, but it accurately describes the Ruby language, designed by Yukihiro Matsumoto. The authors--who wrote The Pragmatic Programmer--feel it deserves a wider exposure in the English-speaking world.

Ruby is fully object oriented with a simple and consistent syntax. It is Open Source and freely available from ftp:ftp.netlab.co.jp/pub/lang/ruby as well as many mirrors. In Programming Ruby the authors set out to show that Ruby can and should replace languages such as Perl, Python, SmallTalk and C++; from which it takes all the best features--even Perl's excellent regular expression support.

The book is in four parts: a tutorial; a section on installing and running it in various environments; a section on the inner workings and interrelationships of the language; and, finally, a huge library reference. The authors make their case for the language's simplicity, predictability and flexibility. Unlike languages which have grown by accretion, such as Perl, it is remarkably clean.

Clearly a labour of love, Programming Ruby is equally clean and the authors' enthusiasm for it drips from the pages. Certainly, if you are passionate about efficient, error-free coding Ruby is hard to beat. There are, though, an awful lot of languages available already.

Ruby is certainly worth a look just to see how simple and accessible an object-oriented language can be when its author can draw on the best and throw away the rest. Working programmers will decide whether Ruby gains widespread acceptance but in Programming Ruby it has a powerful and convincing advocate. --Steve Patient

Book Description

Leverage Ruby, the new object-oriented scripting language that delivers unprecedented power, flexibility, and clarity!
The start-to-finish Ruby tutorial and reference by the two leading Ruby developers.
Written with the pragmatic programmer wit and style readers love!
Comprehensive Ruby 1.6 reference. Ruby, a new, object-oriented scripting language, has won over thousands of Perl and Python programmers in Japan -- and its now launching worldwide. This is the worlds first English-language developers guide to Ruby. Written by the two leading Ruby developers, Programming Ruby demonstrates Rubys compelling advantages, and serves as a start-to-finish tutorial and reference for every developer. The authors introduce all of Rubys basics, including classes, objects, variables, container, iterators, types, methods, expressions, modules, I/O, and threads. Youll master Ruby development for the Web, including CGI scripts and embedding Ruby in HTML; learn how to create GUI-based Ruby applications with TK; and discover techniques for integrating Ruby with Windows. Programming Ruby shows how to extend Ruby in C, and presents in-depth coverage of advanced features. Numerous fully functional code examples are included. The book contains an alphabetical reference to Ruby 1.6 -- the latest version -- documenting over 800 methods, 40 built-in classes, and many useful library modules.
Dave Thomas is an independent consultant specializing in solving complex business problems using advanced technologies and software engineering approaches. With Andrew Hunt, he co-authored The Pragmatic Programmer- From Journeyman to Master (Addison-Wesley, 2000). Andrew Hunt designs and implements innovative Unix software solutions for Toolshed Technologies, Inc. He is fluent in many programming languages and an expert at Unix system troubleshooting and system integration. A member of the IEEE Computer Societys Technical Committee for Computer Languages, Hunt co-authored The Pragmatic Programmer.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

26 Reviews

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.7 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Quick and effective introduction to Ruby, Mar 8 2004

By

Lars Bergstrom "LarsBerg" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

The authors have a wonderful style for introducting the lanaguage Ruby, assuming that you have at least a small amount of prior programming experience. The order of presentation and the amount of polish throughout made this a joy to read and introduces Ruby at a very rapid, yet comfortable, pace.

It does seem to suffer from wanting to be both an introduction to Ruby and a reference manual as well; the last several chapters look (and read like) reference materials. While I'm not opposed to that, the book doesn't have the kind of binding that lets it easily lay flat on your desk open to the page, so I'm more inclined to just open the docs on a separate monitor instead. The book might as well have been lighter and just had a pointer to docs online.

Also, I wonder if some of the presentations of concepts like closures and contiuations aren't a bit too rapid for the casual reader. If you've had a programming background in Scheme or Lisp, it's old hat; however, as I was reading through their presentations and the relatively quick examples, it felt likely that many readers wouldn't get a lot of the subtelty in what was going on under the hood to make the language features work or in what kinds of real world scenarios those sorts of features are useful.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice fun book for programmers, Jan 8 2004

By

Thomas Lee (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

I guess non-programmers can read this book with benefit but having some programming background will help in appreciating the power of this language. The authors do a good job of going through Ruby's syntax and features while using OO principles to buildup on a non-trivial tutorial app. If you're a Perl/Python programmer, this book will get you up to speed quickly.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on Ruby, Dec 14 2003

By

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

This is the best book on Ruby, bar none. Far and away better than Ruby in a Nutshell, which is too terse to be useful. The introductory section provides a smooth ramp into learning Ruby, and the reference section in the back is so good that it's literally dog eared to the point of falling apart in my version. You can get this online for free, but if you are serious about learning Ruby (and you should be, because it's a great language), you should buy this book.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 26 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 28 reviews 4.7 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book For Starting To Learn Ruby
This is my choice for "first" Ruby book. I have two other Ruby books, including "The Ruby Way", which I also love, but the "Dave & Andy Book"... Read more

Published on April 21 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the better language books out there
Dave and Andrew have done it again. It was a pleasure using this book to learn Ruby, which at the time had no other published books out on it and the online documentation was poor... Read more

Published on Feb 28 2002 by Ryan Davis