Ruby In A Nutshell

Rating:
Summary: Slightly dated (1st printing) but good "quick" reference.
Review: Forgotten the name of the libarary that does directory listings? Need to know the method of the IMAP libarary? This is the book for that. Full documentation, look elsewhere, but as a handy guide to keep on your desk. Not a beginners learn to code Ruby book, but a beginners and intermediates quick look up the method book. Learning Ruby? Get this _AND_ a beginner tutorial book. It will speed up your learning curve.

Rating:
Summary: Book does a good job as a reference
Review: I'm just starting to learn the Ruby language, and come into it with a background of having used about 20-25 other languages (to some extent). If you are brand new to Ruby and want to learn it, then the book "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide" is probably a better place to start than this book.

But once you have an understanding of the basic ideas of Ruby, then you're going to want a reference of all the standard Ruby "objects", and what methods are supported by each class of objects. "Ruby in a Nutshell" calls itself "a desktop quick reference", and I think it does a good job of it. It covers a lot of ground, and tries to do it in as few words as necessary.

As to the language itself, I'd say that programmers familiar with Java or Objective-C would find Ruby an easy language to pick up, and to use for projects you might otherwise use Perl for. I haven't tried to use Python yet, so I can not compare Ruby to that language.

Rating:
Summary: Book does a good job as a reference
Review: I'm just starting to learn the Ruby language, and come into it with a background of having used about 20-25 other languages (to some extent). If you are brand new to Ruby and want to learn it, then the book "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide" is probably a better place to start than this book.

But once you have an understanding of the basic ideas of Ruby, then you're going to want a reference of all the standard Ruby "objects", and what methods are supported by each class of objects. "Ruby in a Nutshell" calls itself "a desktop quick reference", and I think it does a good job of it. It covers a lot of ground, and tries to do it in as few words as necessary.

As to the language itself, I'd say that programmers familiar with Java or Objective-C would find Ruby an easy language to pick up, and to use for projects you might otherwise use Perl for. I haven't tried to use Python yet, so I can not compare Ruby to that language.

Rating:
Summary: Still a great reference to keep by your side
Review: The book I have (2002 copyright) is based on Ruby 1.6.5. I have Ruby version 1.8.1-11. So the book is missing certain improvements to this elegant object oriented language. But that didn't seem to be a problem for me when using the book while learning the language.

I keep this book by my side when programming Ruby because, like most O'Reilly Cookbooks, the answers to the basics are a quick flip of the pages away. I also use The Ruby Way which is also good in a text book kind of way -- it offers examples.

All the basic functions and Classes are documented in this Cookbook. Its as if the originator of the language, the author Yukihiro Matsumoto, squeezed all the fluff out of the documentation and only served up the critical calling conventions for all important statements, functions and Classes.

For updates on the functions you can also use online resources or the Help file that comes with the program itself.

This review was written in February of 2004 and version 2.0 of Ruby is said to be a complete re-write. But that release will not be out for another year or so. I would then guess that this book would be valid through 2005.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

Rating:
Summary: Still a great reference to keep by your side
Review: The book I have (2002 copyright) is based on Ruby 1.6.5. I have Ruby version 1.8.1-11. So the book is missing certain improvements to this elegant object oriented language. But that didn't seem to be a problem for me when using the book while learning the language.

I keep this book by my side when programming Ruby because, like most O'Reilly Cookbooks, the answers to the basics are a quick flip of the pages away. I also use The Ruby Way which is also good in a text book kind of way -- it offers examples.

All the basic functions and Classes are documented in this Cookbook. Its as if the originator of the language, the author Yukihiro Matsumoto, squeezed all the fluff out of the documentation and only served up the critical calling conventions for all important statements, functions and Classes.

For updates on the functions you can also use online resources or the Help file that comes with the program itself.

This review was written in February of 2004 and version 2.0 of Ruby is said to be a complete re-write. But that release will not be out for another year or so. I would then guess that this book would be valid through 2005.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

Rating:
Summary: I'd skip this one.
Review: The first couple of chapters are a good, concise reference to the core language, but the library reference is too stark-- most methods seem to have only one or two lines for description. Since this library reference is the bulk of the book, I don't think it's a good buy.

The library reference in the Thomas and Hunt book (Programming Ruby: A Pragmatic Programmer's Guide) is much nicer.