Ruby tutorials and books
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There’s a lot of great Ruby books. Below are a few of the greats, and if that’s not enough, there’s more here.
The Well-Grounded Rubyist, by David Black, one of the most in-depth looks at Ruby and programming concepts in general.
In terms of interactive tutorials, Ruby Koans is so very good. Definitely do it!
Free interactive tutorials
- Kickstart: a fantastic full course on Ruby entirely taught through you building to make the included tests pass. Get started simply by forking and pulling down a copy on Github.
- TestFirst Ruby: used to be an actual taught course, but the materials are entirely complete on their own. Test-driven: you’ll pick up RSpec because the best way to understand what you’ll need to write will be in the specc’ed tests.
- Ruby Koans: Complete self-driven course, entirely different from other courses. Steeper learning curve, excellent results. You’ll learn by doing. RSpec tests and some commented support included, plus it lays out what your progression should be.
- RubyMonk: One of the most popular interactive Ruby tutorials, walks you all the way from strings and fixnums through metaprogramming.
- Ruby in 100 minutes: Exactly as advertised. Great, concise, and short intro to Ruby.
- JumpStart Labs: A whole bunch of great Ruby tutorials for different projects.
Free Ruby books online
- Learn to Program, by Chris Pine, particularly accessible if you’re a complete beginner.
- Ruby User’s Guide, a great overall look. There’s actually ANOTHER Ruby User’s Guide, also quite a great overview, completely unconnected to the first.
- Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby, one of the oddest Ruby books you’ll come across, both fun and informative.
- The Bastard’s Book of Ruby, really thoughtfully put together and superbly informative. The author, Dan Nguyen, has also written another awesome book for Regular Expressions in Ruby, called The Bastard’s Book of Regular Expressions.
Not free, but get these anyway
- The Well-Grounded Rubyist, by David Black, hands down one of the most in-depth looks at Ruby and programming concepts in general.
- Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby, by Sandi Metz. Affectionately called POODR, this is one of the most beloved Ruby books written.
- Beginning Ruby, by Peter Cooper, a particularly amazing book whose author went on to found Ruby Weekly, an excellent and super valuable weekly email newsletter that aggregates cool Ruby posts and news.
- Design Patterns in Ruby, by Russ Olsen.
- Eloquent Ruby, also by Russ Olsen.
- Confident Ruby, by Avdi Grimm, and check out his awesome tech blog + podcasts here.
- Everyday Scripting With Ruby, by Brian Marick. You just can’t beat that Amazon price, too.
- Programming Ruby, one of the classic Ruby books, Affectionately known as the Pickaxe book (thanks to its cover), and one of the very first books written on Ruby.