Eloquent Ruby
by Russ Olsen · first published 2011
83% recommend13% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Conversational guide to how Ruby really works: the object model, inheritance, metaprogramming, and idiomatic style. Suits experienced programmers new to Ruby, and works well as a second book after the basics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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I recently read Russ Olsen's Eloquent Ruby and I loved it. It is incredibly readable; the code and the stories mixing amazingly with real world examples and what not. What are some of yours?
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best written programming books?” ↗Really? Eloquent Ruby is one of the best Ruby books I've read - Russ Olsen is one of the best and most well respected technical writers out there. Design Patterns in Ruby is also excellent.
on “New to Ruby? Tips for the new Rubyist.” ↗The author, Russ Olsen, has written a book, "Eloquent Ruby". It's probably the best programming book I've ever read. It teaches high-level concepts, hard technical stuff about how Ruby really works, and does so in a conversational voice. And in all of those…
on “The Best Programming Advice I Ever Got (2012)” ↗The best advice I can give is get to know Ruby well - don't just focus on Rails in the beginning. Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen is a great read and will give you a deeper understanding if you've got the basics down. Also, the PragProg book Metaprogramming in Ruby is a great intro to metaprogramming.
on “New to Ruby? Tips for the new Rubyist.” ↗I'd recommend reading Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen. It's a great after-Rails intro to Ruby and uses a lot of specific examples from the framework to highlight how Ruby features make some of the magic happen in Rails.
on “New to Ruby? Tips for the new Rubyist.” ↗…you still want to learn more, then I would learn more about javascript, and read The Rails 3 Way:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321601661/zenruby-20.... Finally to learn more about Ruby, read Eloquent Ruby: http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio.... Once you have done that, you should have a pretty solid grounding in Ruby, Rails, and web development in general.
on “Ask HN: Best way to learn Ruby on Rails?” ↗I would like to second Eloquent Ruby. Russ Olsen has a magical way of explaining things in a very simple manner. I will always read anything he writes. Love his style. Now that I am thinking about it, I feel like re-reading that book. The…
on “Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice” ↗…about the use of RSpec and some of the outdated Rails idioms. For myself and a few people I've mentored, Agile Web Development with Rails[0] has yielded much better results. If they follow that up with Eloquent Ruby[1] they will be golden and well ahead of their peers with similar experience. This book single-handedly breeds the "I'm a Rails Programmer!" that write terribly awful Ruby code that we all know and hate.…
on “Draft chapters of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 3rd Edition” ↗Influence by Robert Cialdini. Models by Mark Manson. Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen.
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗I'd also suggest asciicasts.com, they're transcriptions of railscasts episodes, and I find they compliment the videos extremely well. I also like Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen, it's a great way to learn how Ruby really works, written in a more approachable style than the Pickaxe.
on “Learning Ruby and Rails, where would you start?” ↗…invaluable. It's great to just see someone code stuff, instead of finished examples: http://railscasts.com/ Read every one of the Rails guides: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ I started reading Russ Olsen's Eloquent Ruby yesterday, which is absolutely awesome. I'm already half way trough. Wish he could rewrite every programming book I ever read. http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio... It felt…
on “Ask HN: Ruby/RoR, where to begin?” ↗I can't speak specifically to how idiomatic it is as I've yet to read it, but I've heard http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio... recommended a few times.
on “Zed Shaw: The wonderful Rob Sobers did a great job translating LPTHW to Ruby” ↗…first half; reference second half): Programming Ruby 1.9 (aka, the Pickaxe Book) by Dave Thomas. A great second book (maybe even first if you're comfortable enough learning basic syntax on your own) is Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen.
on “Modern Ruby Development” ↗First, get familiar with the language solving all the Ruby Koans http://rubykoans.com Then go through the Rails Tutorial http://railstutorial.org Finally, read Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen and The Rails 3 Way by Obie Fernández
on “Ask HN: What's the best way to learn Ruby/Rails?” ↗Eloquent Ruby is an excellent book for beginners. http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio... If you just want to learn some basics of Ruby without diving into an entire book, check out Ruby Monk.…
on “Learning JavaScript - my experience and advice” ↗