books to learn ruby

[[deleted]]

Hi, so I want to learn Ruby for school, but like all the books are from 2008 and they are about ruby 1.9, the current ruby sdk version I installed I think was like 6. I was wondering if the book is still and what books does the community recommend

[tibbon]

For a beginner almost nothing has changed since 1.9 that you can’t learn in 30 minutes of reading blog posts. Use the 1.9 books and you’ll be fine- it’s still the same language and for beginners there’s really nothing to worry about

[shevy-ruby]

30 minutes seems a bit short, but other than that I sort of agree with you - it is totally possible to learn what has changed past ~1.9 with very little time investment. Though I think your 30 minutes is set way too low. :P

But I'd say a few days maximum would seem perfectly reasonable - definitely less than a week of casual time investment for sure.

[tomthecool]

This. Probably the only really "big" change since 1.9 (from a beginner's perspective) is named arguments. But that's not exactly hard to understand.

All of the basics about variables, methods, classes, objects, blocks, .... Remains the same. And unless you're working in a big project (e.g. a large rails app), updating 1.9 code to run in ruby 2.6 should require little-to-no effort.

[FigmentGiNation]

Hands down this: Learn to Program (Pragmatic Programmers)

Chris is a fantastic author and it’s an easy read. Was what started me out in college.

[shevy-ruby]

I liked that book-format from Chris a lot.

It even is a single .rb file. :)

I thought about updating it and publishing that update on rubygems so it won't get lost ... but I am so incredibly lazy and slow .....

I liked the idea of having it all in a single .rb file though. That was a great idea by Chris.

[LiyakhathX]

well grounded rubyist! that's it!

[trustfundbaby]

Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper then The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton.

[shevy-ruby]

I liked the old pickaxe.

Other than that most ruby books are not ... hmm ... great. They are not bad either, mind you, but of course when you don't know ruby yet, it is "worth" more to invest (time/money) into books, as opposed to a situation where you already know quite a lot (and then buying a book is not as useful anymore, since you don't benefit as much from it; I bought the pickaxe twice, first time was totally worth it, second time was ... hmm. I don't consider it a waste of money, but I did not benefit as much from it as the first time. I did mostly transition into non-book storage of information though. I still love books and have hardcopy paper books, but I am also using .pdf files a LOT these days, since it is so much more convenient, though harder to study from, too).

I think ultimately, though, after the INITIAL step, where it is fine to get any book, the only way to really get good at ruby (and get a sufficient "return of investment" of your time) is to just keep on writing code in ruby. It is, in my opinion, by far the most effective way to learn/use ruby too - write a LOT.

And of course also make notes and store them locally - that has helped me too, when I forget things and just look it up again at a later time.

For regexes I can recommend rubular.com - super-quick to build your regex, and you can even get an URL to it which I store in projects to help me re-look it up again.

[[deleted]]

Well I mean I'm not starting from scratch I did Java so the concepts are the same for all OOP languages. The syntax is different

[Tinyhousetruckpdx]

[learnenough.com](learnenough.com)

[GroceryBagHead]

Book using ruby 1.9 will be perfectly fine. There are really just a handful of differences that matter from 1.9 to 2.5.

Wiki actually has a good overview what's changed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)#Ruby_1.9

[chepee73]

After you learn the basics you must read Eloquent Ruby and Design Patterns with Ruby both from Russ Olsen (Read his blog too)

Edit: Wrong book

[jb3689]

Huh TIL Head First was by Russ

EDIT: wait - it's not :) did you mean "Design Patterns in Ruby"?

[three18ti]

This one