I was disappointed with the so-called Pickaxe Bible. If you're looking for purely a reference book with some decent explanations, this book is great. It seems pretty exhaustive for beginner-advanced applications of Ruby and takes care to remain somewhat "framework" neutral by always listing both popular frameworks as well as alternatives. However, a few things stopped this from being a great book: lack of applicable examples and inconsistent formatting. The examples were usually very contrived, it would have been great to spend more time giving examples of situations where you may want to use a certain language feature and give an example the reader can work along with. The code examples were also inconsistently formatted. Sometimes you'd have a 3-class example to clearly explain functionality, other times it would be a string of code snippets that felt like with a bit more effort they could have been woven into a more coherent example.

A tutorial this book is not, but as a reference for those who have programmed before and want to answer the question "how do I do XXX in Ruby", this book fits the bill.

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Ruby is the fastest growing and most exciting dynamic language out there. If you need to get working programs delivered fast, you should add Ruby to your toolbox.

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This book is the only complete reference for both Ruby 1.9 and Ruby 2.0, the very latest version of Ruby.

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2013 marks the 20th anniversary of the Ruby language. We're proud that throughout its history, we've continued to cover the latest version of Ruby.

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Would you like to go from first idea to working code much, much faster? Do you currently spend more time satisfying the compiler instead of your clients or end users? Are you frustrated with demanding languages that seem to get in your way, instead of getting the work done? Are you using Rails, and want to dig deeper into the underlying Ruby language? If so, then we've got a language and book for you!

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Ruby is a fully object-oriented language, much like the classic object-oriented language, Smalltalk. Like Smalltalk, it is dynamically typed (as opposed to Java or C++), but unlike Smalltalk, Ruby features the same conveniences found in modern scripting languages such as Perl and Python.

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The combination of the power of a pure object-oriented language with the convenience of a scripting language makes Ruby a favorite tool of intelligent, forward-thinking programmers.

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The Pickaxe contains four major sections:

n   n     An acclaimed tutorial on using Ruby. * The definitive reference to the language. * Complete documentation of all built-in classes, modules, and methods. * Complete descriptions of all 97 standard libraries.  n   n  

This is the reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including all the new and changed methods introduced by Ruby 1.9, 1.9.2, 1.9.3, and 2.0). It also includes all the new and changed syntax and semantics introduced since Ruby 1.8. Learn about the new parameter passing rules, local variable scoping in blocks, fibers, and the new block declaration syntax, among other exciting new features.

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About Ruby 2.0

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Ruby 2.0 is a minor update to Ruby 1.9, unlike the more major updates from Ruby 1.8 to Ruby 1.9.

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The major language changes in Ruby 2.0 are the addition of keyword arguments and the change to use UTF-8 as the default source file encoding.

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There are a number of additions to the standard library, including:

n   n     @Enumerator::Lazy@, which adds support for lazy access to potentially infinite lists. * Refinements allow you to encapsulate changes to third-party classes, and scope their application to individual source files, preventing your changes from polluting the global application.  n   n  

You'll also find that Ruby 2 is faster, and has memory management improvements that make it more server-friendly.

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All told, there are over 110 sections of the book that have been flagged and cross-linked to indicate 2.0 content.

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What You Need

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This book assumes you have a basic understanding of object-oriented programming.

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In general, Ruby programmers tend to favor the the command line for running their code, and they tend to use text editors rather than IDEs.

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Ruby runs on Windows, Linux, and Macs.

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Dave Thomas is a cornerstone of the Ruby community, and is personally responsible for many of its innovative directions and initiatives. He and original co-author Andy Hunt are founders of the Pragmatic Programmers and the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

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Andy Hunt is a programmer turned consultant, author and publisher. He co-authored the best-selling book “The Pragmatic Programmer”, was one of the 17 founders of the Agile Alliance, and co-founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publishing award-winning and critically acclaimed books for software developers.

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Chad Fowler is co-director of Ruby Central, Inc., and remains an active, driving force in the Ruby community.

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Very good read, but the second part is a reference manual, which is pretty useless if you have access to the internet and ability to google stuff :)

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I've never made it through one of these books. I always end up reading random snippets on the web instead. It's fine though, half of it is just library documentation anyway. (as is always the case).

I just need to figure out how to make irb give me decent documentation... cheat? ri? rdoc? how can this not be built in?!

Great book

A good point to start learning Ruby from scratch.

Essential.

Actually I'm reading a downloaded PDF of the third edition that covers Ruby 1.9. This is my first exposure to this language; I like it. I'm happy to say goodbye to PHP (fuck that language, it is made of garbage).

Um...right, about the book: I like it, seems pretty clear and goes through the language using several different strategies. Seems to function well as both a beginner's guide, in depth tutorial, and reference: a rare feat. Even the Perl "camel book" (3rd edition in particular) doesn't really nail that, although it tries.

Required reference for a Ruby programmer. Required learning material for a ruby-newbie.

A tour de force journey through the dynamic, object-oriented language known as Ruby, with over 200 pages of new material and full descriptions of all the standard library modules. Covers strings, classes, blocks, and regular expressions with thorough examples. This book has such a reputation as the definitive reference for learning Ruby that it is simply called "The Pickaxe Book" in the programming community. There are many Ruby tutorials and references on the web, but the beauty of this book is that it is both well-written and provides a compendium of what you really need to know about Ruby that can't be easily sourced and collected. This is the ultimate book for both learning Ruby and use as a desk reference.

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Now lowering to 2 stars