| | |  | Software Engineering | Home » » » The Ruby Programming Language | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | 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.
| | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780596516178
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| David Flanagan | | Paperback:
| 448 pages | | Publisher:
| O'Reilly Media | | Publication Date:
| February 01, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0596516177 | | Product Length:
| 7.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 9.1 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.6 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.21 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.61 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.59 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 46 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 46 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
108 of 112 found the following review helpful:
This is the new authoritative Ruby book and the one to buy.Feb 26, 2008
By Peter Cooper
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.
19 of 19 found the following review helpful:
In my top 10 of all time...Oct 26, 2008
By Clinton Begin
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.
19 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Perfect For Experienced Ruby DevelopersMar 07, 2008
By Daniel McKinnon
"Dan"
'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
16 of 17 found the following review helpful:
 Not sure if this is the best book to start!Oct 05, 2009
By Fabio Utzig
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.
16 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Kindle edition formating is not to standardMay 22, 2011
By Eric C. Jones
"xplo99"
While the book is great -- the formating of the kindle edition leaves much to be desired. If you wish to purchase this e-book know that the code is horribly formated and wraps lines even in the smaller font sizes.
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