Ruby books

ruby-talk
1

What is the best book for learning Ruby (Ruby specifically, not
programming in general)?

I note that

“Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide”, Andrew Hunt,
Davis Thomas

has obtained very good reviews, but it is somewhat dated (2000, Ruby
1.6).

What has happend to ruby since v. 1.6?

Cheers
Jesper

2

Jesper Olsen wrote:

What is the best book for learning Ruby (Ruby specifically, not
programming in general)?
Thatt depends on the reader, of course :slight_smile:

“Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide”, Andrew Hunt,
Davis Thomas

has obtained very good reviews, but it is somewhat dated (2000, Ruby
1.6).
It is still my favourite one and indispensable IMHO. It covers every
aspect of Ruby and contains a great language reference. If you are
looking only for a complete reference, then go and get matz’ “Ruby in a
nutshell”. To read something like a cookbook, give “The Ruby Way” a chance.

What has happend to ruby since v. 1.6?

A lot has happened, but most of the changes are backwards compatible
as far as I know, so reading a book on version 1.6 is not a time waste.

3

In article cf0ad9fb.0307070317.48c3d223@posting.google.com,

···

Jesper Olsen jolsen@mailme.dk wrote:

What is the best book for learning Ruby (Ruby specifically, not
programming in general)?

I note that

“Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide”, Andrew Hunt,
Davis Thomas

has obtained very good reviews, but it is somewhat dated (2000, Ruby
1.6).

What has happend to ruby since v. 1.6?

You might consider looking at
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/new_features.html or
http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?ProgrammingRubyTwo

Hope this helps,

Mike

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4

aspect of Ruby and contains a great language reference. If you are
looking only for a complete reference, then go and get matz' "Ruby in a
nutshell".

But don't expect it to be a complete reference otherwise you will be
very very disappointed. This book is just a hack, not a specification.
For example no BNF, not detailed parameter discusssions, no words
about thrown exceptions etc.