About Ruby Essentials

Ruby is a flexible and intuitive object-oriented programming language. From modest beginnings in Japan where it rapidly gained a loyal following, the popularity of Ruby has now spread throughout the programming world. This surge in popularity has, in no small part, been fueled by the introduction and wide adoption of Ruby On Rails. It is difficult, however, to get the most out of Ruby on Rails without first learning something about programming in Ruby, and this is where Ruby Essentials comes in.

Ruby Essentials is designed to provide a concise and easy to follow guide to learning Ruby. Everything from installing Ruby and the basics of the language through to topics such as arrays, file handling and object-oriented programming are covered, all combined with easy to understand code examples that bring theory into practice.

Ruby Essentials is intended to be of equal use to both those experienced in other programming languages and novices who have chosen Ruby as their "first programming language".