Everyday Scripting with Ruby: For Teams, Testers, and You [Paperback]

It's been 12 years since Yukihiro Matsumoto released Ruby's first version. Now that Ruby has achieved mass popularity, more and more people are getting into this new, perhaps odd, programming language. Among other functionalities, Ruby is very suitable for developing lightning fast scripts and learning how to write these is this book's main purpose.

The book is written around four interesting projects that teach you from the basics of Ruby to some useful aspects of this language. Those are an uninstaller checker, a version control system, a web page information retriever and a system monitor for watching long-running programs and then forward information trough email or instant messaging.

Even though the graphics in the book's back says it is for people between beginner and expert level users, I find it specially good for beginners. I'd risk saying that it is even suitable for absolute beginners due to the fact that Brian Marick explains how to set up the language, use a system shell as well as what object oriented programming is, etc...
He does all this without appealing to other languages. This fact, although it is great for beginners, can sometimes annoy experienced developers a bit but it's nothing one cannot deal with.

Brian Marick lead us through the book using a simple and direct speech sometimes with a slight sense of humor to chill things out. He doesn't only teaches how to use the language but also encourage people using it referring to eventual "bugs" and other things that may appear to be odd for beginners.
Another good characteristics are the "Ruby Facts" chapters, it's like an intermission that briefly introduces some concepts as in chapter 10 - "Ruby Facts: Regular Expressions".

The book intends that the reader goes programming along with it as it is a practical book. No deep and extensive concepts are taught here, there's not even an introduction reminding of Ruby's history. Therefore this is a straight practice oriented hands-on book with it's main target being testers that might want to automate some of their work.

Concluding, despite the fact that the book's name ends with "for Teams, Testers and You", all the book seems to be written thinking about testers. I recommend the book specially for beginners who want to learn Ruby as their first programming language and for people who don't know Ruby and want to learn quickly how to write Ruby scripts. Therefore I give this book an overall classification of 4/5.

Review by
Joaquim Rocha (NEEI)

Note the nice little diagram on the back of the book: "Skill level: beginner".

This book was originally drafted with testers (only) in mind, and it shows, with some chapters plunging headlong into code-testing matters, with the implication that those to whom it's not relevant can skip on to the next interesting part. But the majority of this book is about the basics of using Ruby, with practical (command-line) results in mind.

Though it is certainly aimed at the Ruby beginner, this book isn't for programming beginners, as it doesn't try to stop and explain what the meanings and purposes behind the various programming idioms are. Instead, it's assumed that you know something about scripting, programming, or at least command-line shells, and are looking for some way to test your company's Ruby project. Or maybe just add another system administration tool to your arsenal.

For people who need to get practical work done in a command-line environment, or those who (for whatever reason) have to deal with existing Ruby code but don't know it themselves, I would absolutely recommend this book, over even "Programming Ruby" (aka "the pickaxe book"). It concisely covers all the stuff you really need to know, even though it is no reference.

For everyone else - those who already know the basics of Ruby, those who have little use for command-line tools, and those who are novices to programming in general - it may well be worth a read, but I wouldn't suggest you buy it.

Ruby is a bit vicious but with Watir is good for testers. This started out as a book for testers but has been broadened for just all types of ordinary folk. I've only just started it but it looks like a valuable contribution at a very gentle level from someone with plenty of street-cred in the Agile/Testing/Ruby arena. If you've wanted a programming capability to automate lots of everyday tasks but have been overwhelmed by the complexity of say VB Script then maybe this book is for you.