Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)If you are like me, a busy programmer, I know you are wondering when you hear about Ruby, "Do I really have to learn yet another programming language?" I mean, Java, C#, Python? When will it ever end?
Well, it ends when you die, and yes, you do have to learn another programming language :-) But you'll like Ruby, I promise. Things I like about Ruby:
0. As easy to write scripts in as Perl, but it really scales.
1. Exceedingly self-consistent. Ruby has fewer syntactic warts than any programming language I'm familier with. All the features hang together very nicely.
2. Duck Typing: If you use a variable like a string, its a string. If you use it like a float, its a float. If you are familier with Haskell or or similarly typed languages, you get the idea. Ruby gives you about 80% of what Haskell gives you here.
3. Nice module system. This implements a nice mix-in facility--which gives you the power of C++ templates, with more structure. Also eliminates the need for multiple inheritance.
4. Wacky features like call/cc for the true language freaks.
Oh, so you want to know about the book too? Well, I agree with some of the reviewers here who describe the book as less of a tutorial/visionary screed/inspiring gospel and more of a reference manual. But I don't think this is a fair critique of the book. Back in the 60's, before the internet, a language needed a book to do for it what K&R did for C, or what Clocksin & Mellish did for prolog.
But today, you learn about a language by surfing the web. Instead of just duplicating what is available on the internet, this book complements the web, by supplying in a nice portable package what you need to know about Ruby which _can't_ be (easily) gotten from the web. Its a "post-internet" volume in this fashion.
Really the only critique of the book I can offer is that its description of Ruby/TK, the default GUI programming library for Ruby, is a bit abrieviated. It gives you the basics and the refers you a book about Perl/TK for the details. Please guys, in the next edition expand on this!
Ruby is a language which is as object-oriented as smallTalk, as flexible as Scheme, has the scriptibility of Perl, and a nice C-ish syntax. What's not to like? This book is the book to buy if you decide to learn Ruby.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition
Ruby is an increasingly popular, fully object-oriented dynamic programming language, hailed by many practitioners as the finest and most useful language available today.When Ruby first burst onto the scene in the Western world, the Pragmatic Programmers were there with the definitive reference manual, Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide. Now in its second edition, author Dave Thomas has expanded the famous Pickaxe book with over 200 pages of new content, covering all the improved language features of Ruby 1.8 and standard library modules. The Pickaxe contains four major sections:
An acclaimed tutorial on using Ruby.
The definitive reference to the language.
Complete documentation on all built-in classes, modules, and methods
Complete descriptions of all 98 standard libraries.
If you enjoyed the First Edition, you'll appreciate the expanded content, including enhanced coverage of installation, packaging, documenting Ruby source code, threading and synchronization, and enhancing Ruby's capabilities using C-language extensions. Programming for the World Wide Web is easy in Ruby, with new chapters on XML/RPC, SOAP, distributed Ruby, templating systems, and other web services.There's even a new chapter on unit testing. This is the definitive reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including more than 250 significant changes since the First Edition). Coverage of other features has grown tremendously, including details on how to harness the sophisticated capabilities of irb, so you can dynamically examine and experiment with your running code. "Ruby is a wonderfully powerful and useful language, and whenever I'm working with it this book is at my side" --Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks
