Rating: 
Summary: extremely well balanced review of an emergent gem
Review: I have been programming for more than twenty years. I have seen my fill of emergent languages that claim to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Ruby truly is. It manages to combine the most important emergent programming techniques (e.g., iterators, closures, list comprehensions [although that actually dates back to the early 1960s, viz., LISP's "MAPCAR"]) into a thoughtfully conceived syntactic structure. I was astonished to find the pattern-slinging of Perl, the object orientation of Java (plus much stronger data structuring capabilities--something at which Java was always weak), and the generality of C--not to mention seamlessly integrated Tk GUI, UNIX shell (plus entire library of system calls and related "section 3" subroutines) support . Perhaps most remarkably, one can write Ruby programs at the bits-and-bytes level of a systems program or at the event-driven level of an interactive application. Like Ragu spaghetti sauce, "It's in there." (I could carp at some minor syntactic unpleasantries or some inconsistencies in naming conventions, but nothing's perfect.) Bravo, Matsumoto!
Rating:
Summary: First Rate introduction and reference
Review: I have nothing to say about this book that is any different from the other reviewers. This book is an excellent introduction to the Ruby language. It is one of the best written/presented book I have read in a very long time. The book touches upon all aspects of Ruby, beginning with the core language, its constructs and then goes on to other technologies (Automations for instance). Even though the book does not dwell on any "advanced" topic (ie Network API, Win32, Automation etc.), it can still serve as an indispensable reference to the Ruby developer and the pragmatic programmer.
Rating:
Summary: great book about a great programming language
Review: I have read the first book of the auther "The pragmatic programmer" and this book is really great. At their web-site I saw, that they are writing a book about Ruby. I have not known much about Ruby before getting this book. But I played with Perl and Python. Now, after reading most of the book, I have to say, that the book is great, as is Ruby. Ruby is much cleaner than Perl and really object oriented. With this book, it is easy to learn Ruby. If you are tired of Perl or any other language or simply want to learn a new an exciting language, then this book is for you. It is one of the best books about a programming language I have ever read. What the camel book is for Perl, that is this book for Ruby. Get it.
Rating:
Summary: Among the best books on the art of programming
Review: I haven't read a book so well arranged and well written in many years! The book is now regarded the official (US) english reference on Ruby version 1.6The pick-axe book as it is called among the ruby-fans (because of the front cover) is very well suited to beginners as well as experts. It's driven by examples that gives you a extremely good feeling of the power of Ruby. It's fun to read and excels in its unusual but still very gentle learning curve. You'll be finished with the basics of file-handling, I/O, GUI and Threads within the first quarter of the book! The book is divided into four parts: A tutorial for newbies, a practical part on Ruby in its setting, a crystallized part with all the advanced and gory details of Ruby (for the experts), and finally the Ruby Library and Standard Library Reference. The reference is very well arranged and easy to navigate in to say at the least. You'll very quickly find yourself jumping around in the book - revisiting cool examples and trying things out for yourself. You'll pick up Ruby in a number of few days. If you're in doubt go and have a look at www.rubycentral.com where you will find excerpts of chapters from the book, FAQ, links, articles, code snippets, etc. arranged as well as the book :-) I hear there's even been put up an on-line tutorial if you want to try Ruby out right away. Comming from a background of C, C++, Java and Python I've found the language Ruby to beat them all. I didn't think I would need to learn another language, but with Ruby I was positively surprised. Most of the time programming Ruby feels like designing directly in a language that supports the way you think about the problems at hand! So what is Ruby? Here is a little shortcut list for those in a hurry: Easy to learn, high level of abstraction, interpreted, true OO, file-based source code, flexibility, convenience, metaclasses, closures/blocks, iterators, collections, mixins, continuations, threads, regular expressions, modules for patterns support, transparency, dynamic typed, easy to extend (even easier than Python), portability, light weight, easy to embed, modest in use of system resorces, but most importantly: Fun and joyful! And thats just the surface. E.g. the authors have even used Ruby to implent parts of an X11 window manager. It's almost as close as SmallTalk in being pure OO, while you still can make procedural programs if you want to. The simple, clean and concise syntax competes with and wins over the syntax of Python many times. It has the power of C++ while leaving out the details, that slows your development-speed down. You need less code-lines than in Java, but without the loss of clarity or readability. Many Perl-programmers or sys-admins have been shifting to Ruby because of its greater readability while still being just as expressive and powerful. I could go on, but take a short look at www.rubycentral.com and see for yourself. Ruby's worth it. Dennis Decker Jensen
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book About an Interesting Language
Review: I read the authors' first book, _The_Pragmatic_Programmer_, earlier this year and was very impressed. I had seen some articles on Ruby on the Internet and was interested in learning more. When I saw that Hunt and Thomas had written a book on Ruby, I picked it up. I must say I'm impressed by both the book and the language. I'm not quite ready to give up Perl and Python (or even shell scripting) completely, but I am planning on adding Ruby to my programming toolbox. I highly recommend this book to any programmer who likes to learn new languages to improve their understanding of the art and science of software development.
Rating:
Summary: Very high quality book with lots of details and examples
Review: I'm very new to Ruby, but I find learning new programming languages fun and challenging. I like to dig in as quickly as possible, using what examples I can find to show me how the language works, and reading the documentation when I have to. After getting a feel for the language, I start reading the books. I don't start with books, usually, because they're often not geared for a programmer learning a second language. But I found Programming Ruby to be an excellent starting point -- it provides the quick-start help I need by giving numerous and well thought-out examples both in the body of the text and in the reference section (see below). The chapters are well arranged (and even include information on distributed Ruby on page 272, often where most texts just start talking about file I/O!), with the first 276 pages devoted to an introduction to the language. The last 250-or-so pages contain an excellent library reference, alphabetically arranged. The devil is in the details, though. And here, AW put a lot of thought into the finer points. The type is clear; the typographic conventions are standard and, if you've used any other typical programmer's text, easy to follow. So far, this is what you'd expect from any good computer title. In addition, however, they have added an easy-to-use thumbtab system for the alphabetical arrangement of the reference section, so finding a particular entry is quick and easy. Each entry in the reference section is clearly laid out with a class hierarchy (including super- and subclasses), parameters, description, "Mixes in" and a list of all class methods (most (if not all) with examples and output. All well-designed not only for the experienced Ruby programmer but also for the novice. The index is thorough, with helpful vertical lines between the columns, and the reference section entry is identified by bold page numbers. All in all, I would highly recommend this book for new Ruby programmers. There are still a number of things I don't understand about Ruby, but this book is an excellent place to start. It sets the bar very high for future books on this new and exciting programming language.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth the wait !
Review: I've been using a bunch of interpreted programming languages, amongst them were awk, perl, scheme, python and I'll still use them for what they're at best, but then came Ruby (which IMHO combines the best of them all), and the book known as the pickaxe book. It's an introduction to the language, and a reference guide at the same time. It's not intended to absolute beginners, it just requires the reader to have some knowledge of classic programming languages, and some OO knowledge...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Thorough and interesting.
Review: I've read through most of the free, online edition, and I was immediately writing Ruby. Me, a 15 year old with minimal experience in Python and Java (though I'm very strong with ECMAscript/Javascript), picked up the language almost immediately - the only thing which slightly threw me was the concept of iterators, though they explained it so well with so many thoughtful examples I hurdled that obstactle relatively quickly. I liked it so much, I am spending money to purchase the hard copy version of the book, so I can read it on car trips, airplanes, when I'm away from my computer, etc I highly recommend not only this book, but Ruby as a language.
Rating:
Summary: This book is great!
Review: Over the past month, I have been carrying this book back and
forth from work to home and back again, and it is getting to
look a bit beat-up. (This is the highest compliment than can
be paid to a programming book.) This is a truly well done book,with a very clean and
friendly style; it is becoming one of my great favorites. I don't know whether to rave about the book or about the
language, I am excited about both. This book is a tutorial
and reference manual, with plenty of good programming
concepts thrown in for good measure. The language is fun,
effective, and elegant (not to mention cool). This is really the way to do object oriented programming! Too bad Python and Perl don't have books like this!
(Well, perl does OK, but poor Python).
Rating:
Summary: This book is great!
Review: Over the past month, I have been carrying this book back and
forth from work to home and back again, and it is getting to
look a bit beat-up. (This is the highest compliment than can
be paid to a programming book.) This is a truly well done book,with a very clean and
friendly style; it is becoming one of my great favorites. I don't know whether to rave about the book or about the
language, I am excited about both. This book is a tutorial
and reference manual, with plenty of good programming
concepts thrown in for good measure. The language is fun,
effective, and elegant (not to mention cool). This is really the way to do object oriented programming! Too bad Python and Perl don't have books like this!
(Well, perl does OK, but poor Python).
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