Ruby Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I have a confession to make. Over more than twenty years as a programmer I'd never really had my head around object-oriented programming. I started out using C and then tried PHP and Perl and treated both as purely procedural languages (indeed, one Perl guru looked at my code and said "you were a C programmer weren't you"; humbling). Java, JavaScript, C++ and even Objective C had their turn at getting me to convert but none took (though I do code JavaScript under sufferance) until Ruby. A few month ago I started using Rails and became hooked on it and the underlying language. My Rails and Ruby skills have progressed in leaps and bounds. I've already had a good read of "Programming Ruby" and "Agile Web Development with Rails" and enjoyed and learnt from both.

I also have to admit to loving the O'Reilly "Cookbook" series. Several, particularly the "Perl Cookbook", have pride of place on the bookshelf closest to my computer. So the "Ruby Cookbook" by Lucas Carlson and Leonard Richardson was eagerly awaited. The "Cookbook" series are designed to provide you with a plethora of code examples to guide you in writing your own code. I'm definitely a hands-on style of learner and the Cookbook series suits my style - I can start getting my hands dirty with complex problems knowing I have help to code my way of out of the tight spots. This one covers a wide range of tasks from simple, such as walking a directory tree or manipulating text and numbers, through to more complex such as working with AJAX in Ruby on Rails. If you have't previously come across a book in this style then each chapter is broken up into a number of 'recipes' with a problem, a solution and then discussion of the solution.

This sort of book lives and dies by two criteria - the quality of the code and the usefulness of the recipe selection. "Ruby Cookbook" wins on both. The topics covered are wide and leave little, if any, part of the language unexplained. They start with data and structures such as strings and hashes before moving on to code blocks, objects, classes and modules. There is then an intriguing chapter on reflection and metaprogramming that I am still puzzling through before the book moves on to more internet based topics such as XML, HTML, web and internet services and, of course, Rails. The book then proceeds with chapters on the necessary housekeeping of development such as testing, packaging and automating tasks with Rake before finishing with extending Ruby with other languages and system administration tasks. The code is well written; clear and well commented, easily understandable by a virtual newb like me. The discussion is fairly clear, seemingly concise while allowing you to understand the code and how it might be changed for particular purposes.

I'm not going to go into more details as to the contents but instead point you to the <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rubyckbk/index.html">book's page at O'Reilly</a> which includes a link to the contents, listnig all the recipes in the book, and two example chapters; Chapter 7 on code blocks and iteration and Chapter 15 devoted to Rails. Together they will give you a good feel for the style and contents of the book.

The book is well written and well edited. I've already tried over a dozen of the recipes and haven't found a single code error, so my faith in the other 300 or so has risen considerably. The discussion that accompanies each recipe is a marvelous way of learning just that little bit more about the language. I found them quite good, though the odd one could do with further explanation if the book is to stand on its own - for example the discussion accompanying the recipe to iterate over a hash was not perfectly clear on the difference between Hash#each and Hash#each_pair.

At more than 800 pages this is a large and extensive volume, though the price may make you wince. Usually programming books this large have at least part of their size dedicated to something I refer to as pseudo-padding, some sort of reference or simple language explanation - this one has neither, all of it is devoted to the recipes.

With Ruby use, thanks in no part to the popularity of Rails, growing by leaps and bounds I'm sure this volume will be a well deserved bestseller. I give it four stars and recommend it to all but the most expert Ruby programmers. For beginners who, like me, appreciate hands on learning it is a must.

Some O'Reilly books are horrible, and some are great--this happens to be one of the better ones. It's full of concise examples of how to use Ruby's standard libraries and most popular extensions that more than make up for their frequently terrible and always unnavigable RubyDoc generated documentation. An excellent next step for those who've read through "Programming Ruby" and are wondering how to put the language's better features to good use without becoming completely dependent on any of the currently popular application frameworks I'd guess about 90% of people are learning Ruby for. It even covers RubyCocoa basics.

I have found a couple typos here and there, but mostly just misplaced spaces and omitted words; nothing dangerous so far.

Ok. Let's pretend you're a Java programmer, and you want to know what's the story about this Ruby language you've heard so much about. Or maybe, like me, you're a Smug Smalltalk Weenie and you want to check how the young cousin from the East is doing. Either way, you got your hands on a manual or on a tutorial, and now you're reasonably sure you have a good grasp of the language. But you still have to learn the slang, and _that_ is the difficult part.

But don't worry, here comes the Ruby Cookbook to the rescue. The book is a full, 850-pages behemoth full of Ruby tips and tricks, from string manipulation to database management, from reflection to multitasking.

Presenting their tips in the usual O'Reilly cookbook format (problem/solution/discussion), the two authors cover almost all the topics of interest for both the beginner and the expert Ruby programmer.

All in all, the Ruby Cookbook is like a dictionary that you should keep by your side when you're programming in Ruby. The only small con is the high number of typos, especially in the first part: nothing which stops you from understanding what the authors are saying, but finding a typo in almost every page of a chapter gets tiresome after a while.

Anyway, you can't go wrong by buying this book.