For more than a decade, Ruby developers have turned to The Ruby Way for reliable “how-to” guidance on effective Ruby programming. Now, Hal Fulton and André Arko have thoroughly updated this classic guide to cover new language enhancements and developers’ experiences through Ruby 2.1.
The new edition illuminates Ruby 2.1 through 400+ examples, each answering the question: “How do I do this in Ruby?” For each example, they present both a task description and realistic technical constraints. Next, they walk step-by-step through presenting one good solution, offering detailed explanations to promote deeper understanding.
Conveniently organized by topic, The Ruby Way, Third Edition makes it easier than ever to find the specific solution you want―and to write better code by reflecting Ruby’s unique philosophy and spirit.
Coverage includes
- Ruby 2.1 overview: terminology, philosophy, and basic principles
- Best practices for strings and regular expressions
- Efficiently internationalizing your code
- Performing calculations (including trigonometry, calculus, statistics, and time/date calculations)
- Working with “Rubyesque” objects such as symbols and ranges
- Using arrays, hashes, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, and other data structures
- Efficiently storing data with YAML, JSON, and SQLite3
- Leveraging object-oriented and dynamic features, from multiple constructors to program inspection
- Building GUIs with Shoes 4, Ruby/Tk, Ruby/GTK3, QtRuby, and other toolkits
- Improving thread performance by understanding Ruby’s synchronization methods and avoiding its pitfalls
- Automating system administration with Ruby
- Data formats: JSON, XML, RSS, Atom, RMagick, PDF, and more
- Testing and debugging with RSpec, Minitest, Cucumber, byebug, and pry
- Measuring Ruby program performance
- Packaging and distributing code, and managing dependencies with Bundler
- Network programming: clients, time servers, POP, SMTP, IMAP, Open-URI
- Web applications: HTTP servers, Rails, Sinatra, HTML generation, and more
- Writing distributed Ruby software with drb
- Choosing modern development tools that maximize your productivity
All source code for this book may be downloaded at www.rubyhacker.com.
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Praise for The Ruby Way, Third Edition
“Sticking to its tried and tested formula of cutting right to the techniques the modern day Rubyist needs to know, the latest edition of The Ruby Way keeps its strong reputation going for the latest generation of the Ruby language.”
Peter Cooper
Editor of Ruby Weekly
“The authors’ excellent work and meticulous attention to detail continues in this latest update; this book remains an outstanding reference for the beginning Ruby programmer– as well as the seasoned developer who needs a quick refresh on Ruby. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Ruby programming.”
Kelvin Meeks
Enterprise Architect
Praise for Previous Editions of The Ruby Way
“Among other things, this book excels at explaining metaprogramming, one of the most interesting aspects of Ruby. Many of the early ideas for Rails were inspired by the first edition, especially what is now Chapter 11. It puts you on a rollercoaster ride between ‘How could I use this?’ and ‘This is so cool!’ Once you get on that rollercoaster, there’s no turning back.”
David Heinemeier Hansson
Creator of Ruby on Rails,
Founder at Basecamp
“The appearance of the second edition of this classic book is an exciting event for Rubyists–and for lovers of superb technical writing in general. Hal Fulton brings a lively erudition and an engaging, lucid style to bear on a thorough and meticulously exact exposition of Ruby. You palpably feel the presence of a teacher who knows a tremendous amount and really wants to help you know it too.”
David Alan Black
Author of The Well-Grounded Rubyist
“This is an excellent resource for gaining insight into how and why Ruby works. Assomeone who has worked with Ruby for several years, I still found it full of new tricks and techniques. It’s accessible both as a straight read and as a reference that one can dip into and learn something new.”
Chet Hendrickson
Agile software pioneer
“Ruby’s a wonderful language–but sometimes you just want to get something done. Hal’s book gives you the solution and teaches a good bit about why that solution is good Ruby.”
Martin Fowler
Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks
Author of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
