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Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide, Second Edition

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Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide, Second Edition (Paperback)

by Dave Thomas (Author), Chad Fowler (Author), Andy Hunt (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 829 pages
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 2 edition (1 Oct 2004)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0974514055
ISBN-13: 978-0974514055
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 18.8 x 4.4 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 110,006 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#15 in Books > Computing & Internet > Programming > Languages > Ruby

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Product Description

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

From the Publisher

The famous Pickaxe book (so named for the tool on the cover) is the definitive reference to the highly-regarded Ruby programming language. Author Dave Thomas has expanded the new Second Edition with over 200 pages of new material and major enhancements from the original, covering all the new and improved language features of Ruby 1.8 and standard library modules.

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	53% buy the item featured on this page: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide, Second Edition 4.6 out of 5 stars (7) �22.11
	15% buy The Ruby Programming Language 4.7 out of 5 stars (3) �18.60
	13% buy Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (3rd Edition) �24.03
	10% buy Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers) 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) �25.49

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ruby's "Camel", 20 Mar 2006

By A Customer

A one-stop shop for your Ruby needs. Which is just as well, as the nation's bookshelves are not exactly heaving with up-to-date Ruby books. If you already know how to program in an Object Oriented language, then this will efficiently introduce you to the Perl It's Ok To Like. If you don't know OOP (or how to program at all), you will find this hard going.

Apart from an introduction to the syntax and classes, a major plus point is that it also provides information on core utilities: documentation with RDoc, and package management and deployment with RubyGems. Also, there are chapters on using Ruby for CGI scripting and SOAP web services, and an introduction to building GUIs with Tk. The last half of the book is a reference to the built-in classes and modules, and the standard library, which you will find yourself referring to regularly as you make your first steps.

My one problem is that the examples are too fragmentary. There's a jukebox application that is sketched out, but only to cover the basics. Many of the examples are admittedly contrived, and serve only to illustrate potential gotchas and corner cases rather than standard usage. As I began deploying Ruby for my own scripts, I found myself having to scamper back and forth across the entire book to get everything I needed to make a script run.

That said, this is a nice, comprehensive book. It's not been the life-changing event for me that it appears to have been for some, but it's well-written and it'll get you going quickly.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely superb book, 1 Feb 2006

By	Mr. K. Akram "Alkemist" (Wembley, London) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I came across Ruby on Rails about 2 months ago, and originally discovered Ruby about a year ago, but did not delve much into it.

I started the tutorial on the rails web site and it really did blow me away. I ordered both the Ruby and Rails books from Amazon immediately and have been devouring chapters daily from both.

Ruby is an excellent language. Fully OO, and a lovely syntax. I thought Java was nice (and it is), but Ruby is a real gem ... :-)

This book will enter the halls of great books like "The C Programming Language", "The Java Programming Language" and "The C++ Programming Language".

It is very well thought out, very concise, and avoids the pleonasms and verbiage that afflict some languages. It has some features that I've not found in other languages: the code blocks and 'yield' constructs are really nice. Don't think of it as an OO version of Perl: it is so much more than that.

If you want to learn Ruby - this really is a superb place to start. If Ruby is going to prove to be a challenger to Java in years to come, then this book is a perfect place to start your Ruby journey. It is indeed a mine of information.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ruby book to own, 4 Jun 2007

By	Craig Taverner (Sweden) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I originally bought this book to learn Ruby, but since then it has been the reference manual beside my keyboard for all Ruby and Rails applications. It is well written and complete, more so than expected. Three books in one, a beginners introduction, a detailed tutorial, and a reference manual.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Not enough for a beginner
I bought this book on the basis of the other positive reviews. It's not a bad book, but neither is it great - more specifically, I'd say it's not enough for a beginner. Read more

Published 18 months ago by B. Coppin

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
If you want to learn or make use of the impressive Ruby language you _need_ this book

Published 19 months ago by F. Villa

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and concise - as beautiful and the language it teaches
I recently came across the Rails web framework that utilises the ruby language. It's an exciting framework that makes web application development very simple - but what is... Read more

Published on 27 Dec 2005 by Mr. Michael Ward

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful as a primer and a reference
I learnt the basics of Ruby within about half a day using this book and managed to produce a piece of coursework quickly thereafter using this book as a reference for the methods... Read more

Published on 17 Dec 2005

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