Learning Ruby, 272 Pages

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You don’t have to know everything about a car to drive one, and you don’t need to know everything about Ruby to start programming with it. Written for both experienced and new programmers alike, Learning Ruby is a just-get-in-and-drive book—a hands-on tutorial that offers lots of Ruby programs and explains how and why they work, just enough to get you rolling down the road.Interest in Ruby stems from the popularity of Rails, the web development framework that’s attracting new devotees and refugees from Java and PHP. But there are plenty of other uses for this versatile language. The best way to learn is to just try the code! You’ll find examples on nearly every page of this book that you can imitate and hack.Briefly, this book:Outlines the most important features of RubyDemonstrates how to use conditionals and how to manipulate strings in RubyCovers regular expressionsDescribes how to use operators, basic math, functions from the Math module, rational numbers, and moreGuides you through Ruby arrays and demonstrates hashes in detailExplains how to process files with RubyDiscusses Ruby classes and modules (mixins) in detail, including a brief introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) Introduces processing XML, the Tk toolkit, RubyGems, reflection, RDoc, embedded Ruby, metaprogramming, exception handling, and other topicsAcquaints you with some of the essentials of Rails and includes a short Rails tutorialEach chapter concludes with a set of review questions, and appendixes provide a glossary of terms related to Ruby programming, plus reference material from the book in oneconvenient location. If you want to take Ruby out for a drive, Learning Ruby holds the keys.Michael Fitzgerald has more than 20 years of experience as a writer and programmer and describes Ruby as his “favorite language so far.” Michael is also the author of Learning XSLT, XML Hacks, and Ruby Pocket Reference, and coauthor of XML Pocket Reference, all published by O’Reilly.

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sMichael Fitzgerald is Director of Education for AtTask, a leader in online project management software. He is the author of Learning Ruby, Ruby Pocket Reference, XML Pocket Reference, Third Edition with Simon St. Laurent, XML Hacks, and Learning XSLT, all published by O'Reilly. He is also the author of Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide and XSL Essentials (both by John Wiley & Sons). His books have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. He has also been a regular contributor to XML.com. Michael likes to ski, ride and train horses, and spend lots of time with his family. Barbara Fritchman ThompsonRobert Bruce Thompson