Ruby Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) [Paperback]

Michael James Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2007 | Series: Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)

Although Ruby is an easy language to learn, in the heat of action you may find that you can't remember the correct syntax for a conditional or the name of a method. This handy pocket reference offers brief yet clear explanations of Ruby's core components, from operators to reserved words to data structures to method syntax, highlighting those key features that you'll likely use every day when coding Ruby.

Whether you've come to Ruby because of the Rails web development framework --Ruby's killer app -- or simply because it's a relatively clean, powerful and expressive language that's useful for a lot of applications, the Ruby Pocket Reference is organized to help you find what you need quickly. This book not only will get you up to speed on how Ruby works, it provides you with a handy reference you can use anywhere, anytime.

In this book, you find essential information on:

• Reserved words, operators, comments, numbers, variables, ranges, and symbols
• Predefined variables andglobal constants
• Conditional statements, method use, classes, and modules (mixins)
• Lists of methods from the Object, String, Array, and Hash classes and the Kernel module
• sprintf andtime formatting directories
• Interactive Ruby (irb) and the Ruby debugger
• Ruby documentation

You also get information on the RubyGems package utility and Rake, a build tool similar to make.. If you're using Ruby daily and just want the facts-fast-Ruby Pocket Reference is your book.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Fitzgerald is Principal at Overdue Books LLC, a publishing and writing firm. He is the author of Learning Ruby, Ruby Pocket Reference, XML Pocket Reference, Third Edition with Simon St. Laurent, XML Hacks, and Learning XSLT, all published by O'Reilly. He is also the author of Building B2B Applications with XML: A Resource Guide and XSL Essentials (both by John Wiley & Sons). His books have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. He has also been a regular contributor to XML.com. Michael likes to ski (downhill and cross country), ride and train horses, and spend time with his family.

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st Ed. edition (July 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596514816
• ISBN-13: 978-0596514815
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Computers & Internet > Programming
  • #72 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Computers & Internet > General

More About the Author

Michael James Fitzgerald is the author, coauthor and publisher of 20 books. His technical books have appeared in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. He has also written numerous technical articles (see http://xml.com), and is a former member of the OASIS RELAX NG technical committee. He is currently the owner and Principal of Overdue Books LLC (http://www.overduebooks.net), a writing and micropublishing company.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Handy Reference and Guide, August 9, 2007

By 

Scott Schram (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ruby Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

This book is a handy reference and guide to the Ruby programming language. Small and lightweight, it would be at home in a laptop bag.

I program in several languages (lately: Ruby, Java, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript). A quick reference book like this is helpful when switching contexts, reminding me of the syntax or method call that has slipped my mind.

The explanations and examples concisely illustrate the language concepts. Tables list (often all of) things like pre-defined variables, global constants, etc.

An experienced programmer could learn the important basics of Ruby in a quick scan of the first 60 pages. However, I would still recommend reading one of the thorough tutorial books to get an in-depth understanding of some of the more unique Ruby techniques.

In addition to the items covered in the product description, the book includes:

* The most commonly used areas of the File and IO classes.

* A glossary of Ruby specific terms.

* RDoc, the utility for extracting documentation embedded in comments in Ruby source, and the basics of formatting your comments for RDoc.

* A thorough 20 page index including all of the special characters (punctuation) in use in Ruby. Very handy when trying to read someone else's code.

* Many links to Ruby resources on the web.

Note that the Amazon book description should read "sprintf and time formatting *directives*". That is, the special character combination for formatting strings and the output of time.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Handy reference for the experienced Ruby programmer, August 30, 2007

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ruby Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

You probably could learn Ruby from this handy little pocket guide, but I wouldn't advise trying it. The examples are much too short and sweet to really do a good job of it. For the experienced Ruby programmer, though, it is a great reference on all aspects of the language. It even has introductory material on how to get started running Ruby, plus some bonus material at the end on RubyGems, Rake, and a listing of additional Ruby resources - some online and some that are books. RubyGems is a package utility for Ruby that installs Ruby software packages and keeps them up to date. It is even easier to use than tools like the Unix/Linux tar utility or Java's jar utility. Rake is a build tool that helps you build, compile, or otherwise process files, sometimes large numbers of them. Rake is similar to "make" and Apache ant, but is written in Ruby. Rails operations use Rake frequently.

The only negative thing I can say is that it seems like the book was hastily edited. I haven't seen any errors in the technical directions yet, but I have caught more than a few grammar errors and odd repetitions in the regular text that might have you scratching your head and wondering what the author meant. The following is the table of contents:

Chapter 1. Ruby Pocket Reference
Section 1.1. Conventions Used in This Book
Section 1.2. Comments and Questions
Section 1.3. Acknowledgments
Section 1.4. Running Ruby
Section 1.5. Reserved Words
Section 1.6. Operators
Section 1.7. Comments
Section 1.8. Numbers
Section 1.9. Variables
Section 1.10. Symbols
Section 1.11. Predefined Variables
Section 1.12. Pseudovariables
Section 1.13. Global Constants
Section 1.14. Ranges
Section 1.15. Methods
Section 1.16. Conditional Statements
Section 1.17. Classes
Section 1.18. Files
Section 1.19. The IO Class
Section 1.20. Exception Handling
Section 1.21. Object Class
Section 1.22. Kernel Module
Section 1.23. String Class
Section 1.24. Array Class
Section 1.25. Hash Class
Section 1.26. Time Formatting Directives
Section 1.27. Interactive Ruby (irb)
Section 1.28. Ruby Debugger
Section 1.29. Ruby Documentation
Section 1.30. RDoc Options
Section 1.31. RubyGems
Section 1.32. Rake
Section 1.33. Ruby Resources
Section 1.34. Glossary

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent pocket guide, January 19, 2008

By 

Paul Kavanagh - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ruby Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

150 pages, really fits in a pocket. Well written, great reference, could serve as a tutorial in a pinch.