Ruby Documentation Bundle

This is a broad set of Ruby documentation packaged into one bundle for convenient access. All of the documents are available for separate download; links are given in the "About the Authors" section. The information is aimed particularly at less experienced Rubyists, because they will often be referred to some of these documents in the newsgroup, but it is a useful set of offline material for anyone to have.

Please send feedback to Gavin Sinclair.

Introduction

Getting Started With Ruby

An introduction to the resources available to beginners in the Ruby language, by Gavin Sinclair. Covers various aspects of the Ruby community as well.

General information about Ruby

Programming Ruby       [NO FRAMES]

A great introduction to Ruby for people who are already programmers. This is the free online version of a real book; the first Ruby book in English, in fact. It is known affectionately as "The Pickaxe" after the image on its cover. The default link above contains a table of contents and an index in side frames. If you can't or don't want to view frames, the other link is available.

Ruby User's Guide

Translated from the Japanese (by Yukihiro Matsumoto) by Goto Kentaro and Mark Slagell.

Reference Manual

Now a little out of date (it covers version 1.4 of the language), it remains a good reference.

FAQ

Ruby FAQ

This is an old copy, because the new FAQ (here) cannot yet be represented in a single file. However, the content is similar and useful. Check the link for updates.

comp.lang.ruby FAQ

This brief document covers guidelines for posting to the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup and the ruby-talk mailing list (which are effectively the same thing). It is maintained by Hal Fulton.

Things that Newcomers to Ruby Should Know

A list of traps for young players, compiled by Bill Tjokroaminata.

Tutorials

Introduction to Ruby

A very introductory tutorial by Daniel Carrera. Suitable especially for those with little prior knowledge of programming. It is incomplete, but contains enough juice to quench a beginner's thirst.

Learning to Program

Another very introductory tutorial by Chris Pine. It is unable to be included in this bundle, but can be found here.

About the Authors

Gavin Sinclair is a Ruby user since June 2002. He travelled a long path to Ruby maturity, and wanted to share some wisdom with others in the same position. He packages this bundle and wrote the introduction.

David Thomas and Andrew Hunt are responsible for the canonical English Ruby document: "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide" (Addison-Wesley), also known as The Pickaxe after the picture on the cover. It is loved for its thorough engagement of the reader with the language, its breadth and its excellent reference to all the standard libraries.

Dave and Andy, as they are better known, continue to make stellar contributions to the Ruby community. Between them they have created 'ri' (an indispensible online reference), the Windows Ruby distribution, RDoc, and kickstarted the Ruby FAQ.

• Programming Ruby: the Pragmatic Programmer's Guide is hosted at http://www.rubycentral.com/book

• The Ruby FAQ is hosted at http://www.rubygarden.org/iowa/faqtotum

Mark Slagell, in addition to translating the Ruby Users Guide, wrote Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days (SAMS), which has received much praise in the Ruby community for helping people with the crucial first steps.

Goto "gotoken" Kentaro is a long-time Ruby user who, in addition to translating the Ruby Users Guide, has created several useful packages for Ruby, the most commonly-used probably being "Benchmark".

Yukihiro "matz" Matsumoto, the creator of Ruby, authored the Ruby Users Guide (in Japanese) and the Ruby Reference Manual. He is also the author of Ruby in a Nutshell, (O'Reilly), a very handy desktop guide.

• The Ruby Users Guide is hosted at http://www.ruby-lang.org/~slagell.

• The Ruby Language Reference Manual, version 1.4.6 is hosted at http://ruby-lang.org/en/man-1.4/index.html.

Hal Fulton, although represented here as maintainer of the comp.lang.ruby FAQ, is best known for his excellent book The Ruby Way (SAMS).

• The comp.lang.ruby FAQ is hosted at [http://www.rubycentral.com/faq/ruby_newsgroup_faq.txt]

Daniel Carrera and Bill Tjokroaminata are regular Ruby users who sensed a need and applied their enthusiasm to the task of creating a well-received tutorial, and the newcomer's list respectively. The tutorial is under active construction (as of 2002-12-30) and the list is liable to be updated, so keep these links handy.

• Daniel's tutorial is hosted at http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.2/
• Bill's newcomers' list is hosted at http://www.glue.umd.edu/~billtj/ruby.html

All of these authors are regular participants in the Ruby mailing list, a place where much knowledge is shared and ideas advanced.