Eloquent Ruby

· Addison-Wesley Professional
4.6
23 reviews
Ebook
448
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

It’s easy to write correct Ruby code, but to gain the fluency needed to write great Ruby code, you must go beyond syntax and absorb the “Ruby way” of thinking and problem solving. In Eloquent Ruby, Russ Olsen helps you write Ruby like true Rubyists do–so you can leverage its immense, surprising power.

Olsen draws on years of experience internalizing the Ruby culture and teaching Ruby to other programmers. He guides you to the “Ah Ha!” moments when it suddenly becomes clear why Ruby works the way it does, and how you can take advantage of this language’s elegance and expressiveness.

Eloquent Ruby starts small, answering tactical questions focused on a single statement, method, test, or bug. You’ll learn how to write code that actually looks like Ruby (not Java or C#); why Ruby has so many control structures; how to use strings, expressions, and symbols; and what dynamic typing is really good for.

Next, the book addresses bigger questions related to building methods and classes. You’ll discover why Ruby classes contain so many tiny methods, when to use operator overloading, and when to avoid it. Olsen explains how to write Ruby code that writes its own code–and why you’ll want to. He concludes with powerful project-level features and techniques ranging from gems to Domain Specific Languages.

A part of the renowned Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series, Eloquent Ruby will help you “put on your Ruby-colored glasses” and get results that make you a true believer.

Ratings and reviews

4.6
23 reviews
A Google user
August 28, 2012
A pleasant journey through how Ruby makes expressing certain solutions more pleasant. It gradually builds in complexity from basic syntax through metaprogramming to creating DSLs and looking at the source code of Ruby implementations. It is not intended to be your introduction to Ruby, but the dedicated learner could probably use it in that way. For everyone else, I'd suggest starting with "Programming Ruby 1.9" (a.k.a "the Pickaxe book") or "The Well-Grounded Rubyist". I've been using Ruby for a while, so I already knew some of the material covered. However, Olsen gave me a solid respect for metaprogramming - how it works, when you should do it. Also, I love that he used real world examples of projects "in the wild" which use the techniques he demonstrated. If you read the book, follow along and look at those projects. It makes stuff much clearer.
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A Google user
November 20, 2012
As an experienced programmer, I meticulously went through the whole book in one month. Right after, I started coding in Ruby and felt very comfortable writing it!
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Stephen Lauck
November 27, 2012
Even if you have been using ruby for a while this book is a great tool for brushing up. Quickly takes a novice to intermediate just by reading and applying some of the best practices.
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About the author

Russ Olsen’s career spans three decades, during which he has written everything from graphics device drivers to document management applications. These days, he diligently codes GIS, web service security, and process automation solutions. He spends much of his otherwise free time writing and speaking about programming, especially Ruby and Clojure. His first book was the highly regarded Design Patterns In Ruby (Addison-Wesley, 2007). He is also the lurking presence behind the Technology As If People Mattered blog at www.russolsen.com.

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