Ruby has taken the programming world by storm.  With the slow decline of Java and the catalyst of Rails, it has risen to become one of the most popular programming languages, rising to #10 on the TIOBE index and winning their "Programming Language of the Year" award.
Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book is a book about this fine language, but it is not a language book per se.  It is perhaps best described as a mix between your favorite novel, your favorite Spanish textbook, and a Richard Simmons exercise video: it walks you through the very basics of working with Ruby, but by the end of it, you'll no doubt be
sweatin' it to the oldies.   It covers the base syntax of the language, including working with values, flow control, and object oriented programming, into some of the library functionality of Ruby, such as databases, web services, and string manipulation.

Expect this book to rock your world.  Or at least teach you a programming language.

This is the eBook version of the printed book.Most design pattern books are based on C++ and Java. But Ruby is different–and the language's unique qualities make design patterns easier to implement and use. In "Design Patterns in Ruby," Russ Olsen demonstrates how to combine Ruby's power and elegance with patterns, and write more sophisticated, effective software with far fewer lines of code.After reviewing the history, concepts, and goals of design patterns, the author offers a quick tour of the Ruby language–enough to allow any experienced software developer to immediately utilize patterns with Ruby. The book especially calls attention to Ruby features that simplify the use of patterns, including dynamic typing, code closures, and "mixins" for easier code reuse.Fourteen of the classic "Gang of Four" patterns are considered from the Ruby point of view, explaining what problems each pattern solves, discussing whether traditional implementations make sense in the Ruby environment, and introducing Ruby-specific improvements. You'll discover opportunities to implement patterns in just one or two lines of code, instead of the endlessly repeated boilerplate that conventional languages often require."Design Patterns in Ruby" also identifies innovative new patterns that have emerged from the Ruby community. These include ways to create custom objects with metaprogramming, as well as the ambitious Rails-based "Convention over Configuration" pattern, designed to help integrate entire applications and frameworks.Engaging, practical, and accessible, this book will help you build better software while making your Ruby programming experience more rewarding.

Most design pattern books are based on C++ and Java. But Ruby is different—and the language's unique qualities make design patterns easier to implement and use. In this book, Russ Olsen demonstrates how to combine Ruby's power and elegance with patterns, and write more sophisticated, effective software with far fewer lines of code.

After reviewing the history, concepts, and goals of design patterns, Olsen offers a quick tour of the Ruby language—enough to allow any experienced software developer to immediately utilize patterns with Ruby. The book especially calls attention to Ruby features that simplify the use of patterns, including dynamic typing, code closures, and "mixins" for easier code reuse.

Fourteen of the classic "Gang of Four" patterns are considered from the Ruby point of view, explaining what problems each pattern solves, discussing whether traditional implementations make sense in the Ruby environment, and introducing Ruby-specific improvements. You'll discover opportunities to implement patterns in just one or two lines of code, instead of the endlessly repeated boilerplate that conventional languages often require.

Flexible Rails is a unique, application-based guide for using Ruby on Rails 2 and Adobe Flex 3 to build rich Internet applications (RIAs). It is not an exhaustive Ruby on Rails or Flex reference. Instead, it is an extensive tutorial in which the reader builds multiple iterations of an interesting RIA using Flex and Rails together. Author Peter Armstrong walks readers through eleven iterations in which the sample application–pomodo–is variously built, refactored, debugged, sliced, diced and otherwise explored from every conceivable angle with respect to Ruby on Rails and Adobe Flex. The book unfolds both the application and the Flex-on-Rails approach side-by-side.

Django, the Python-based equivalent to the Ruby on Rails web development framework, is presently one of the hottest topics in web development today. In The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right, Adrian Holovaty, one of Django's creators, and Django lead developer Jacob Kaplan-Moss show you how they use this framework to create award-winning web sites. Over the course of three parts, they guide you through the creation of a web application reminiscent of chicagocrime.org.

The first part of the book introduces Django fundamentals like installation and configuration. You'll learn about creating the components that power a Django-driven web site. The second part delves into the more sophisticated features of Django, like outputting non-HTML content (such as RSS feeds and PDFs), plus caching and user management. The third part serves as a detailed reference to Django's many configuration options and commands. The book even includes seven appendixes for looking up configurations options and commands. In all, this book provides the ultimate tutorial and reference to the popular Django framework.

Ruby on Rails is fast displacing PHP, ASP, and J2EE as the development framework of choice for discriminating programmers, thanks to its elegant design and emphasis on practical results. RailsSpace teaches you to build large-scale projects with Rails by developing a real-world application: a social networking website like MySpace, Facebook, or Friendster.

Inside, the authors walk you step by step from the creation of the site's virtually static front page, through user registration and authentication, and into a highly dynamic site, complete with user profiles, image upload, email, blogs, full-text and geographical search, and a friendship request system. In the process, you learn how Rails helps you control code complexity with the model-view-controller (MVC) architecture, abstraction layers, automated testing, and code refactoring, allowing you to scale up to a large project even with a small number of developers.

Flexible Rails is a unique, application-based guide for using Ruby on Rails 2 and Adobe Flex 3 to build rich Internet applications (RIAs). It is not an exhaustive Ruby on Rails or Flex reference. Instead, it is an extensive tutorial in which the reader builds multiple iterations of an interesting RIA using Flex and Rails together. Author Peter Armstrong walks readers through eleven iterations in which the sample application–pomodo–is variously built, refactored, debugged, sliced, diced and otherwise explored from every conceivable angle with respect to Ruby on Rails and Adobe Flex. The book unfolds both the application and the Flex-on-Rails approach side-by-side.

Want to take Ruby to the limit? Looking for new, powerful, and creative ideas that will take Ruby beyond Rails and web programming? If you’re comfortable with Ruby, you’ll be itching to go further–apply Practical Ruby Projects: Fresh Ideas with Ruby and become a master of advanced Ruby techniques.

Rubyist Topher Cyll brings several imaginative projects to this book, ranging from making generative music, animations, and turn-based games to implementing simulations, algorithms, and even an implementation of Lisp!

Art, music, theory, and games–this book has it all. Best of all, it’s all done with Ruby.

Each chapter, in addition to making you say “Cool–I hadn’t thought of that before,” looks at solving tricky development problems, enforces best practices, and encourages creative thinking. You’ll be building your own exciting, imaginative Ruby Projects in no time.

• Create imaginative and innovative Ruby programming projects.
• Learn how to solve tricky development problems, be guided by best practices, and be inspired to think creatively.
• Don’t waste time on the basics–it’s assumed you know the fundamentals of Ruby already.

Practical Rails Social Networking Sites shows you the complete development cycle of a social networking community web site. The project develops first as a simple content management system, after which author Alan Bradburne progressively adds features in order to build a full Web 2.0–enabled community-based social networking site using Ruby on Rails.

You will learn how to make the best use of the Ruby on Rails framework within a large project and how to implement and adapt features specific to a community. The book offers practical advice and tips for developing and testing, along with guidance on how to take your site live, as well as optimize and maintain it.

The book also explores how to integrate with other community sites such as Flickr and Google Maps, and how to make good use of Rails' Ajax features. You will also learn how to optimize and adapt your site to work well on mobile browsers.

This handy little book offers programmers a complete overview of the syntax and semantics of regular expressions that are at the heart of every text-processing application. Ideal as a quick reference, Regular Expression Pocket Reference covers the regular expression APIs for Perl 5.8, Ruby (including some upcoming 1.9 features), Java, PHP, .NET and C#, Python, vi, JavaScript, and the PCRE regular expression libraries.

This concise and easy-to-use reference puts a very powerful tool for manipulating text and data right at your fingertips. Composed of a mixture of symbols and text, regular expressions can be an outlet for creativity, for brilliant programming, and for the elegant solution. Regular Expression Pocket Reference offers an introduction to regular expressions, pattern matching, metacharacters, modes and constructs, and then provides separate sections for each of the language APIs, with complete regex listings.