I’m thinking of buying & reading Ruby in a Nutshell (O’Reilly, 2001),
but am concerned that it may be outdated. The stable version at the
time of publication was Ruby 1.6. Is this still worth the investment?
I’m really looking for an extremely concise, but in-depth guide to Ruby.
I own (and have read) the Pick Axe and The Ruby Way, but neither of
them are really what I want. I’m concerned with the mechanics, syntax,
and libraries, but most of the books (and lupine cartoons, however
amusing) just seem to be cursory love letters of the form “look at all
this cool stuff you can do with Ruby!” That’s great, but it’s not what
I need right now.
You want The_Ruby_Programming_Language, by David Flanagan & Yukihiro
Matsumoto, O’Reilly, 2008. It describes Ruby 1.8 and some Ruby 1.9. At
400+ pages, it’s in-depth but hardly what I’d call “concise.”
this cool stuff you can do with Ruby!" That’s great, but it’s not what
I need right now.
You want The_Ruby_Programming_Language, by David Flanagan & Yukihiro
Matsumoto, O’Reilly, 2008. It describes Ruby 1.8 and some Ruby 1.9. At
400+ pages, it’s in-depth but hardly what I’d call “concise.”
Jeff, IMHO the upcoming book by David A. Black could be for you -
although it is not short either. But it covers 1.9:
An then there’s the material which can be found online:
The Manning book looks promising, too. The site says that “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist is [a revised edition of] Ruby for Rails.” I’ve
seen positive reviews of that book. Rails is the primary reason for my
recently rekindled interest in Ruby.
You should be aware though that David’s new book is solely about Ruby as
a language. It covers all the basics pretty good, I’d say, which is
what you seem to be after if I read your original posting correctly.
I’m thinking of buying & reading Ruby in a Nutshell (O’Reilly, 2001),
I’m really looking for an extremely concise, but in-depth guide to
Ruby.
Ruby-Doc.org: Documenting the Ruby Language
Thanks, Tim and Robert. I appreciate the pointers. I’ve read a couple
of Flanagan’s books (on Java and JavaScript), and found very clear and
readable.
The Manning book looks promising, too. The site says that “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist is [a revised edition of] Ruby for Rails.” I’ve
seen positive reviews of that book. Rails is the primary reason for my
recently rekindled interest in Ruby.
You should be aware though that David’s new book is solely about Ruby as
a language. It covers all the basics pretty good, I’d say, which is
what you seem to be after if I read your original posting correctly.
The Manning book looks promising, too. The site says that “The
Well-Grounded Rubyist is [a revised edition of] Ruby for Rails.” I’ve seen
positive reviews of that book. Rails is the primary reason for my recently
rekindled interest in Ruby.
Well, it’s a revised edition of Ruby for Rails, updated to Ruby 1.9, but
without any rails content. It’s now just a Ruby book, focused on Ruby
1.9.