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20 Ruby Books for Beginner

Ruby Books

Ruby is the fastest growing and most exciting dynamic language out there. If you need to get working programs delivered fast, you should add Ruby to your toolbox.

The combination of the power of a pure object-oriented language with the convenience of a scripting language makes Ruby a favorite tool of intelligent, forward-thinking programmers.

This is a good time for Ruby! It's powerful like Java or C++, and has dynamic features that let your code react gracefully to changes at runtime.

Here you will get Best 20 Ruby Books For learning Ruby programming.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books for learning Ruby.

1.Intro To Ruby Programming: Beginners Guide Series 1st Edition

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This book along with the udemy video series has helped a ton. Which for me is difficult being medically attention deficit. As well as John avoiding technical jargon that no beginner will understand. Thank you John for this skillset. I'm looking to get out of a career that is admin and out into a creative technical field.

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2.Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (The Facets of Ruby) 4th Edition

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Very detailed reference book. This is a must have for every rails developer, but if you are a complete beginner, this book will likely not give the guidance needed unless the person already has strong OOO skills from other languages. If you are new to programming, this book will be useful - but not the best starting point as it is a reference guide and not a guide to teach someone how to program and about OOO.

This is the reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including all the new and changed methods introduced by Ruby 1.9, 1.9.2, 1.9.3, and 2.0). It also includes all the new and changed syntax and semantics introduced since Ruby 1.8. Learn about the new parameter passing rules, local variable scoping in blocks, fibers, and the new block declaration syntax, among other exciting new features.

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An older free edition is available online.

3.The Well-Grounded Rubyist Second Edition

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The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Second Edition is a beautifully written tutorial that begins with your first Ruby program and goes on to explore sophisticated topics like callable objects, reflection, and threading. The book concentrates on the language, preparing you to use Ruby in any way you choose. This second edition includes coverage of new Ruby features such as keyword arguments, lazy enumerators, and Module#prepend, along with updated information on new and changed core classes and methods.

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4.Eloquent Ruby (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series) 1st Edition

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This is a truly wonderful book. I wouldn't recommend it to people who don't know the basics or have a solid understanding of the core API (the author doesn't either, in fact he says so in the "Who is this book for" block). However, if you've got the basics down and wish to polish your code and/or learn a some interesting techniques to making your life easier when writing, I'd highly recommend this book. The author explains everything in clear to-the-point way instead of dancing around the point with pages of filler. It's a long read if you're going cover to cover but it's well worth it.

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5.The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming

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It is written well and in a simple style so readers can understand easily. And it is very complete -- I searched online for Iconv info but this book provided the best and correct information. If only the author can write about Relativity as well, then I am sure it will be more understandable.

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6.The Ruby Programming Language: Everything You Need to Know

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This book begins with a quick-start tutorial to the language, and then explains the language in detail from the bottom up: from lexical and syntactic structure to datatypes to expressions and statements and on through methods, blocks, lambdas, closures, classes and modules.

The Ruby Programming Language is an amazing book. It is a full comprehensive guide to the language including many advanced topics and is ideal for any programmer who wants to master the Ruby language.

The author assumes the reader has a sound foundation in programming another language and often gives excellent examples and analogies for people that may already understand a concept or context in C/C++, Java, Perl, or Python for example. He does the same to warn about things that are different or reversed to avoid confusion, e.g. (pseudo phrasing) "If you're a Java programmer, note that [it] works the opposite way in Ruby. Instead of..." I would not recommend this book to you if you don't have any experience programming but anyone with a sound handle on the basic fundamentals of coding with instantly fall in love with it.

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7.Head First Ruby: A Brain-Friendly Guide

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This is the first programming book that I could read casually without taking notes or going online to look things up. Also, this book walks a really good line between being informal and not being a Dummies book. I am reading this book and then alternating with a couple other, more traditional, Ruby books and it is really helping my learning.

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8.Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional

Beginning-Ruby

This book is the most impressive Ruby book I have seen thus far. Clearly explained concepts, examples and explanations for ideas and expressions that are esoteric to the novice. I especially appreciate how the author breaks down arcane concepts like some RegEx I have seen and simplifies them. As the third Ruby book I bought, I'm a bit surprise that I did not see it soon enough.

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9.Ruby: Learn Ruby in 24 Hours or Less

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In this book you will find the fundamental aspects of the Ruby programming language. It will explain theories and lessons through detailed instructions and practical examples. With this eBook, you'll learn how to get Ruby, how to write Ruby statements, and how to use this language in creating your own programs.

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10.Ruby For Beginners: Your Guide To Easily Learn Ruby Programming in 7 days

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This book aims to guide a complete novice in Ruby programming. This book is carefully crafted to aid the new or inexperienced programmer in learning to write a code in Ruby language. If you are someone who somehow developed a fear to explore the unknown and still interested in learning Ruby programming, then this book can truly help you. This book covers everything that a beginner in Ruby programming should learn.

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11.Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby

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Ruby’s widely admired ease of use has a downside: Too many Ruby and Rails applications have been created without concern for their long-term maintenance or evolution. The Web is awash in Ruby code that is now virtually impossible to change or extend. This text helps you solve that problem by using powerful real-world object-oriented design techniques, which it thoroughly explains using simple and practical Ruby examples.

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12.A community-driven Ruby coding style guide

This Ruby style guide recommends best practices so that real-world Ruby programmers can write code that can be maintained by other real-world Ruby programmers. A style guide that reflects real-world usage gets used, while a style guide that holds to an ideal that has been rejected by the people it is supposed to help risks not getting used at all - no matter how good it is.

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13.Ruby Pocket Reference: Instant Help for Ruby Programmers

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Ruby Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition is ideal for experienced programmers who are new to Ruby. Whether you’ve come to Ruby because of Rails, or you want to take advantage of this clean, powerful, and expressive language for other applications, this reference will help you easily pinpoint the information you need.

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14.Ruby Cookbook: Recipes for Object-Oriented Scripting

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Revised for Ruby 2.1, each recipe includes a discussion on why and how the solution works. You’ll find recipes suitable for all skill levels, from Ruby newbies to experts who need an occasional reference. With Ruby Cookbook, you’ll not only save time, but keep your brain percolating with new ideas as well.

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15.Effective Ruby: 48 Specific Ways to Write Better Ruby

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If you’re an experienced Ruby programmer, Effective Ruby will help you harness Ruby’s full power to write more robust, efficient, maintainable, and well-performing code. Drawing on nearly a decade of Ruby experience, Peter J. Jones brings together 48 Ruby best practices, expert tips, and shortcuts—all supported by realistic code examples.

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16.Metaprogramming Ruby 2: Program Like the Ruby Pros

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Write powerful Ruby code that is easy to maintain and change. With metaprogramming, you can produce elegant, clean, and beautiful programs. Once the domain of expert Rubyists, metaprogramming is now accessible to programmers of all levels. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the bestselling Metaprogramming Ruby explains metaprogramming in a down-to-earth style and arms you with a practical toolbox that will help you write your best Ruby code ever.

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17.Learn Ruby the Hard Way

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A Simple and Idiomatic Introduction to the Imaginative World Of Computational Thinking with Code (3rd Edition)

This book is great. I'm doing everything Zed suggests and it takes the time it takes. I've tried several other books and online resources, including videos at coding schools, and this one is the best I have found. It feels like a thorough foundation in the basics of Ruby, but since I'm a beginner, I can only speak at my level of expertise at the moment. Zed is a great teacher. Learning the basics of any complex pursuit can be inherently tedious, but Zed's humor and empathy help you stick with it. I highly recommend buying this book.

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18.Learning Ruby: The Language that Powers Rails

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Interest in Ruby stems from the popularity of Rails, the web development framework that's attracting new devotees and refugees from Java and PHP. But there are plenty of other uses for this versatile language. The best way to learn is to just try the code! You'll find examples on nearly every page of this book that you can imitate and hack.

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19.Ruby on Rails Tutorial

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Used by sites as varied as Twitter, GitHub, Disney, and Airbnb, Ruby on Rails is one of the most popular frameworks for developing web applications, but it can be challenging to learn and use. Whether you’re new to web development or new only to Rails, Ruby on Rails™ Tutorial, Fourth Edition, is the solution.

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20.Agile Web Development with Rails 5.1

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Ruby on Rails helps you produce high-quality, beautiful-looking web applications quickly---you concentrate on creating the application, and Rails takes care of the details. Rails 5.1 brings many improvements, and this edition is updated to cover the new features and changes in best practices.

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Note:This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.

Top comments (5)

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highcenburg profile image
Vicente G. Reyes

Hi, community mod here. On the Terms of Use:

If a post contains affiliate links, that fact must be clearly disclosed. For instance, with language such as: “This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.”

Thanks.

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misucai profile image
misucai

Thanks.

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srebalaji profile image
Srebalaji Thirumalai

Awesome list of ruby resources. I was waiting for someone to post this. :)

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misucai profile image
misucai

Thanks.

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snj profile image
Nic

Hey,I think metaprogramming is not for beginners.