The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Fourth Edition. David A Black, Joseph Leo III

Write Ruby programs like a veteran Rubyist!

For over fifteen years, The Well-Grounded Rubyist has taught beginner and developing Ruby programmers the veteran secrets of Ruby. This new fourth edition of the groundbreaking classic goes beyond syntax and commands into how a Rubyist really thinks. Fully updated for Ruby 3.4, this approachable guide shows you Ruby principles in a way that’s friendly, clear, and packed with code samples.

In The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Fourth Edition you’ll learn how to:
 

• Master Ruby’s object-oriented core, including classes, modules, and message passing
• Work with Ruby’s built-in types: strings, symbols, arrays, hashes, and numerics
• Use RubyGems to install, share, and manage libraries
• Organize your code with classes, modules, and mixins
• Write clean, expressive Ruby with functional techniques and blocks
• Harness regular expressions and file/keyboard I/O for real-world tasks

You don’t need to know every Ruby function or add-on library to be a well-grounded Rubyist. All you need is to properly understand the principles that underpin Ruby code! The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Fourth Edition highlights the most useful parts of the language with examples designed to spark “aha!” moments. This is not a dry syntax reference or overly technical deep dive. You’ll go from your first Ruby program all the way to sophisticated topics like reflection, threading, and recursion.