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Introduction to Ruby

Ruby is said to be the beautiful and artful programming language created by Yukihiro. it is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-programming. Yokihiro created ruby because he wanted a scripting language that was powerful than perl and more object oriented than Python. Ruby is one of the easiest programming language in the world, you can do any kind of complex programming at ease.

an example: creating a loop to print a string 10 times is so simple as

10.times {puts “string”}

that was easy isn’t it? give it a Try, it helps even if you want to work with Rails (yes Ruby on Rails)

Few people asked me to write some tutorials, to help them get started with ruby and when i thought of writing it, found a lot of resources already available online so decided not to create a duplicate post instead compiled a stack of those resources for you guys to get started with.

An Interview with the Creator of Ruby
Yokihiro, creator of ruby and one of the high profile opensource evangelists in Japan talks about the outstanding features of Ruby and why the world needs another scripting language

10 Reasons to Learn Ruby Author has made a very short, modest, humble and incomplete list of few reasons which may entice you to learn Ruby or atleast play with it a little bit.

Learn Ruby Basics

Getting started with Ruby This link points you to the official Ruby Documention where you can find manuals, tutorials and references that will come in handy when you feel like coding in Ruby. This helps you get started with Ruby quickly

Start with the Basics This is an introductory guide which was originally written in japanese by matz. This English Translated version is maintained by the rubyist.net webmaster, they also have documentations for other programming languages like python,perl, etc..

Lets Learn Ruby Fast This Tutorial is intended for people who prefer learning things faster(maybe in 30mins or 1hr). All the major concepts of Ruby is explained practically with the help of short and simple examples. Check this out and try writing your own script, start with a simple one.

Core Ruby Programming the Ruby Study Notes is a step-by-step tutorial to programming in Ruby and you can follow it page by page, reading the text and running the sample programs. there are no large applications here – just small, self-contained sample programs.you can also join satish talims rubylearning classes online

Ruby Quiz: once you get your feet wet, you might want to check out the Ruby Quiz archives. there are over 150 small programming challenges that you can try to solve using Ruby. they also have an active mailing list where they post new challenges every week, join them for interactive learning

Ruby for Java ProgrammersIf you are a Java programmer thinking of learning ruby, you should check this out. in this Presentation Jim brings out many important differences between Java and Ruby, and this can really help you avoid mistakes that many Java programmers make when transitioning to Ruby.

Ruby Books

The following books are, in our opinion, the best & Freely available online books for the aspiring Ruby Geeks to check out.. All it contains is pure Ruby

The PixAxe Book This book has been the gold standard of Ruby books for years, and is a must have for ruby programmers. it has both a descriptive section and a reference section. Many poeple have found this book to be very informative and they consider this one to be the first step to learning Ruby, though it doesn’t have excercises for you to practice with..it doesn’t just walk you through the details, dos and don’ts of the programming language, but it allows the reader to grasp the practice of the “Ruby way” of doing things. and it’s a clean, elegant, yet powerful way!

Mr.Neighborly’s Humble little Ruby Book This book will help you learn more in 45 minutes than you will learn in 4 hours with any other book. seriously, if you want to learn ruby start here. This will quickly teach you the basics. the examples are very good and the obscure reference to the band mewithoutyou is a plus!

Learn to Program (Ruby) Chris Pine explains what programming is with very simple words and metaphores, ones that everyone can understand. he doesn’t overwhelm you with complex concepts or tools and dives very progressively into the programming universe, chosing concrete code samples. the choice of Ruby is simply accurate : intuitive & powerful object language, no fancy IDE, just a notepad and a command line and you’ll see the first results after reading the first pages of this book.

Ruby Programming Wiki This is a complete guide to learning Ruby which is available online for free, in the form of wiki. People who’re used to reading Documentations from wiki’s might find this really helpful.

Practical Learning

PLEAC for those who prefer learning things the practical way. This link points to the PLEAC project in sourceforge which contains codes explaining all the basic concepts of the programming. and not only Ruby, the PLEAC project includes more programming languages such as Python,Perl..etc. just check out the codes and learn

Hope the above resources helps you get started. even if you want to Learn Rails, Learning Ruby helps a lot so just start with Ruby. I will do more posts on Ruby and Rails in future, so stay tuned to GeexHQ.com. Feel free to share your thoughts on Ruby below

before Concluding, here is a warning given to people who have decided to learn/try the Ruby Programming Do Not Learn Ruby

This post is tagged code, programming, rails, ruby

Starting up with Ruby

Applicant should have passion for programming and love for software development. Experience in following tools/technologies is a plus.

– Knowledge of Javascript, CSS, XML, XHTML is a must

– Strong Concepts of Databases, Object Oriented Programming and Software Engineering

– Experience in PHP OR Python is a huge plus

– Experience in client side javascript libraries like jQuery or prototype is a plus

– Knowledge and experience in MVC architecture is a plus

– Passion and ability to learn new tools and technologies is the key for selection

Associate Software Engineer – (PHP/Python), Lahore, Mezino …

I have some experience with C, and am looking to learn a language that can do some web based stuff. I’ve done a bit of Perl, but don’t really want to learn it. PHP is there also, but again, seems like it may be a bit outdated(?)

I’ve heard a lot about Ruby on Rails, but from the description on their website it seems to mainly be used for database driven sites.

Python is also popular and seems to be learnable (for my level of experience).

My web host supports both, so I’m mostly just looking for a direction on which would be more useful to learn. The projects I would like to use it for would not be strictly database driven things (which as mentioned seem to be Ruby’s specialty), just general web things like um for example a simple calculator or form processor or things like that. Any suggestions, and if so, why? thank you!

Learn Ruby on Rails or Python?

Hi,

please tell me something regarding ruby on rails

i use python to build comet server for small applications.

is it possible to create ajax( comet ) server applciations with ruby on rails?

can i simply conver to rubyon rails ?

please show me an example applicatin built on rubyonrails

Thanks,
Satish.K

what is the best way to create a comet application with ruby on rails?

To listen to folks at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, the proprietary Content Management System is on its deathbed.

And it may well be not too much of a stretch to believe that’s the case.

the idea of open source isn’t as foreign and scary to businesses as it once was, and in such difficult economic times as we find ourselves, it’s to be expected that it would become more attractive. why not customize a CMS built on Drupal or Python or Ruby or Joomla rather than start from scratch? what need is there to reinvent the wheel each time?

A few panels at SXSWi gave rather convincing evidence this has become the norm, not the exception.

It wasn’t any surprise that speakers at the Friday panel, “Selling Your Milk When the Cow is Free,” were in the open source corner. After all, the moderator was Jeff Eaton, software architect for Lullabot Consulting and a core developer for the Drupal project. Panelists were Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of LiveJournal; Evan Prodromou, founder/CEO of StatusNet inc, the Open Source microblogging company; Eric Gundersen, president/co-founder of Development Seed; and Tiffany Farriss, president of Palantir.net inc. and member of the Drupal Association Board of Directors.

They, and much of their audience, were the choir. No preaching necessary. but, still, they offered interesting insight into how they got into open source development. For Fitzpatrick, it was quite by accident. He built LiveJournal as a tool for himself and his friends. As someone hacked a new tool or improvement, he passed the code around. Eventually, he got tired of doing that and open-sourced it so that anyone could add code.

For Farriss, it took some convincing. As her company does a lot of development for clients, she fell into the cliche of thinking that open source would mean her clients wouldn’t need her.

the point all panelists came to was that they’re being paid for their expertise and ability to do the job, not because their technical tools are hidden behind proprietary licensing. that point was made at length during a SXSWi conversation about businesses moving toward the open source model when it came to their processes and pricing.

Drupal creator Dries Buytaert pointed out a slew of utterly mainstream sites that are built on that open source platform: Emmys.com & Grammys.com, for example. Heck, even Sun Microsystems used Drupal to build its online community, Java.net.

Though some in the audience complained loudly on Twitter (though not in the Q&A portion of the talk) that Buytaert’s talk, headlined, “RIP, Content Management Systems,” ran more like an infomercial for Drupal than an actual talk about the death of CMS, he made some convincing points that the CMS is no longer really that – and they’re rarely proprietary anymore. Audience member Lance Roggendorff, a technology consultant from Nashville, Tenn., put it quite succinctly in this tweet:

“Long and short: Content has been dethroned, community is the new royalty. Drupal is a social publishing system, not a CMS.”

And the point of content being “dethroned” – i.e., whole communities being built up around user-generated content, such as I can has Cheezburger or Digg/Reddit – Buytaert pointed out made it difficult for the old CMS model to work, anyhow. Those focused on a relatively small number of content creators. with a virtually unlimited number of content creators, the system needs to be simpler and more flexible – calling cards of Open Source.

while the SXSWi audience may be a bit more tech-savvy than the world at large, and therefore perhaps a bit more predisposed to the open source model, there are plenty of mainstream examples besides those listed above: WhiteHouse.gov on Drupal, IHOP and Harvard on Joomla, Twitter and YellowPages.com on Ruby on Rails.

there will always be some who are nervous about anything labeled “open,” for fear that others will be able to get into their content, somehow, but that doesn’t seem to be any more the case with open source platforms than it is with proprietary (though to listen to each side argue, you could easily be convinced it is – and which is easier to hack depends which side the person’s arguing against).

After listening to all these talks, though, one might be forgiven for thinking the proprietary CMS is on its last legs – or thinking that it should be.

Is this the year the proprietary CMS dies?