Sometimes, the difference between getting a project off the ground and watching it linger on the launchpad is finding an example of how to do something in code.
Perhaps you're working on a project and you'd like to send an email using Ruby. Maybe you'd like to know how to read and write zip files or create thumbnail images from full size graphics files. Sometimes cruising through the API documentation just doesn't quite give you enough info.
The Ruby Cookbook fills the void for a portable version of a Ruby code snippet search engine. For each example, there is a Problem description, a Solution section containing one or more chunks of Ruby code and a Discussion section for follow-up. Most examples also have a See Also section for cross reference.
A huge amount of material is covered. Topics range from simple stuff like strings, numbers, hashes, arrays and objects to more challenging subjects like code blocks, reflection, metaprogramming and multithreading. It has chapters on Internet services, Web services and distributed programming, and Web development with Ruby on Rails.
I'm only just skimming the surface here, this is a big book with 873 pages. It is quite simply packed with goodies. There is something in this book for Ruby programmers at every level. The book is well written and easy to read. You can download a zip file containing all of the code samples from the O'Reilly website.
If you want to learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails, there are three books that will help you more than anything else: Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas, Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson and the Ruby Cookbook by Lucas Carlson and Leonard Richardson.
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