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The Book of Ruby--New from No Starch Press: New Book Shows How to Master Ruby from the Inside Out

Press release: June 30, 2011

The Book of Ruby

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San Francisco, CA, June 30, 2011—Ruby is one of the world's most popular programming languages. It's powerful, expressive, and accessible for even inexperienced coders. But while Ruby is famously easy to learn, most users only scratch the surface of what it can do.

The Book of Ruby (July 2011, 400 pp., $39.95, ISBN 9781593272944) reveals Ruby's hidden inner workings and shows how to write clear, maintainable code. Readers begin with the basics—types, data structures, and control flows—and progress to advanced features like blocks, mixins, metaprogramming, and beyond. Rather than bog things down with a lot of theory, The Book of Ruby takes a hands-on approach and focuses on making coders productive from day one.

"Ruby may be easy to learn, but it's not easy to master," said author Huw Collingbourne. "Many a user has been caught out by its deceptively simple syntax. If you've toyed with Ruby but still feel like you're just playing around, The Book of Ruby will give you the insight you need to make it do remarkable things."

With The Book of Ruby readers learn to:

  • Leverage Ruby's succinct and flexible syntax to maximize productivity
  • Balance Ruby's functional, imperative, and object-oriented features
  • Write self-modifying programs using dynamic programming techniques
  • Create new fibers and threads for lightweight multitasking
  • Catch and recover from execution errors with robust exception handling
  • Develop powerful web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework

Each chapter includes a "Digging Deeper" section that shows readers how Ruby works under the hood, so they won't be caught off guard by its scoping, multithreading features, or precedence rules.

Whether readers are new to programming or just new to Ruby, they'll find The Book of Ruby to be a complete guide to the art of rapid, real-world software development with this unique and elegant language.

For more information or to request a review copy of The Book of Ruby, contact Travis Peterson at No Starch Press (nostarchpr@oreilly.com, +1.415.863.9900 x100), or visit www.nostarch.com.

About the Author

Huw Collingbourne is the Director of Technology for SapphireSteel Software, developer of the Ruby In Steel IDE. With 30 years of programming experience, he has written programming columns for numerous magazines, presented features on computing for BBC Television, and currently edits the online technical journal Bitwise Magazine. He has previously released two free ebooks on Ruby—The Little Book of Ruby and The Book of Ruby.

Additional Resources
Chapter 11: "Symbols?" (PDF)
Table of Contents
Detailed Table of Contents (PDF)
Index (PDF)
Catalog Page

The Book of Ruby The Book of Ruby
Publisher: No Starch Press
by Huw Collingbourne
ISBN 9781593272944, $39.95 USD  
July 2011, 400 pp.
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

Request Review copy

Available in fine bookstores everywhere, from http://www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or directly from No Starch Press (http://www.nostarch.com, orders@nostarch.com, 1-800-420-7240).

About No Starch Press
Founded in 1994, No Starch Press is one of the few remaining independent computer book publishers. We publish the finest in geek entertainment—unique books on technology, with a focus on open source, security, hacking, programming, alternative operating systems, LEGO, science, and math. Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our books tackle topics that people care about. Visit http://www.nostarch.com for a complete catalog.

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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