The Ruby Way
by Hal Fulton · first published 2001
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical, idiom-focused Ruby reference that teaches through worked recipes and examples, from data structures to real tasks; suits developers moving into Ruby or wanting to deepen their skills after basics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The Ruby Way assumes that the reader is already familiar with the subject matter. Using many code samples it focuses on "how-to use Ruby" for specific applications, either as a stand-alone language, or in conjunction with other languages. Topics covered include: Simple data tasks; Manipulating structured data; External data manipulation; User interfaces; Handling threads; System programming; Network and web programming; Tools and utilities. Note: The appendices offer instruction on migrating from Perl and Python to Ruby, and extending Ruby in C and C++.
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…ones at http://www.peepcode.com Also, grab "The Rails Way" book by Obie Fernandez (it's THE BEST book on Rails.. when you learn the basics, it's better than 'Agile Web Development with Rails') and "The Ruby Way" by Hal Fulton.
on “Ask YC: Learning Web Development, were should I start?” ↗There’s quite a few: - Zed Shaw’s Learn More Python the Hard Way[1] - Brian Hogan’s Exercises for Programmers (good for beginners)[2] - Hal Fulton’s The Ruby Way[3] - Chris Ferdinandi’s Vanilla JS Academy[4] - Marc-Andre Cournoyer’s Great Code Club (it’s old, and the community doesn’t exist anymore, but i think he still maintains it)[5] - A few python books…
on “Ask HN: Books that teach programming by building a series of small projects?” ↗I need to learn some PHP after several years of serious hacking in Ruby. Of all Ruby books I've read "The Ruby Way" by Hal Fulton was the most practical and fun to follow. For example, while telling you about basic data structures it would also give you a recipe for implementing a sparse matrix or how to use arrays…
on “Ask HN: The best PHP book for Ruby programmer?” ↗…order): 1. The Mythical Man Month, Brooks 2. Peopleware, DeMarco and Lister 3. Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, Norvig 4. The C Programming Language, Kernighan and Ritchie 5. The Ruby Way, Fulton I had a hard time deciding whether or not to include the Pragmatic Programmer, in the end I decided to go with The Ruby Way because it was an unusually enjoyable read for a language book. I…
on “Five Memorable Books About Programming” ↗Poignant is fun. That's all. Probably the best book for really learning Ruby is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. Hal clearly gets Ruby. The book is thorough (although possibly a little out of date now), introduces a lot of idiomatic Ruby, and has just the right amount of geeky inside jokes.
on “The Most Unusual (and Best) Computer Language Book I've Ever Seen.” ↗…Scripting with Ruby by Brian Marick 3. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt An excellent book to build your skills and internalize the common Ruby idioms is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton. As others have mentioned, Agile Web Development with Rails is The Book to use for learning Rails. Of the above, the only book I don't have in one form or another is Chris Pine's (because…
on “Ask HN: I want to learn Ruby ” ↗…from the Cookbook. opt. Ajax on Rails by Raymond (O'Reilly). An in Depth Reference to Prototype, Scriptaculus and rjs. Useful since there is no really good reference on these for the noob. opt. The Ruby Way by Fulton (Addison Wesley) An 'inside out' Ruby reference. Instead of going through classes and methods on by one, this book is organized by things one can do, with the classes and methods introduced…
on “How did you learn RoR?” ↗I'm quite fond of http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Way-Second-Addison-Wesley-Profess... while there are some people who love the pickaxe book (first edition is free on http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby)..and others. As for free guides, I love…
on “Help an (aspiring) Hacker” ↗Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: http://poignantguide.net/ This is good for your first steps. Then check out The Ruby Way to dig in deeper: http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Way-Second-Addison-Wesley-Profess...
on “What did you use to teach yourself Ruby?” ↗…JavaScript. (https://github.com/gmosx/nitro) The Ruby Nitro framework more or less morphed into Ramaze. (For those curious about Ruby Web framework archaeology dig up a 2nd edition copy of Hal Fulton’s The Ruby Way (2006) and read the Web dev section. Caveat: I wrote the non-Rails parts of that section.)
on “Today Rails turns 10 years old” ↗this reminds me of how even fulton, the author of the ruby way, made a critical mistake in "the ruby way" 1st edition (fixed in 2nd edition) and matz chimed in saying " "Don't modify the receiver while you are iterating over it." http://www.justskins.com/forums/collect-with-block-modifying...
on “Array Iteration Interview Problem” ↗A great interview with Hal Fulton, the author of "The Ruby Way" book.
on “Chatting with Hal Fulton (The Ruby Way, author)” ↗