Michael Fitzgerald directs his book "Learning Ruby" to two audiences:
* "experienced programmers who want to learn Ruby"
For this audience, the book excels. The author suggests that experienced programmers "read the code, skim the explanations as needed". Ruby syntax is very readable, so this works very well. An experienced programmer could learn Ruby in about a day using this technique. You won't know every intricacy of the Ruby language, but you'll know enough to start reading and writing in the real world and where to look for more information.
* "new programmers who want to learn to program"
I think most new programmers would be comfortable with more explanation than this book provides. However, the examples are small, and with some hands-on using Ruby's interactive interpreter (irb) it might work for some.
Following the introduction to the Ruby language, the author includes:
More Fun with Ruby - a mixture of topics including sprintf (for formatting strings), XML handling libraries, RubyGems (a package utility for Ruby that provides access to a repository of re-usable libraries), rDoc (the Ruby documentation generator) and a light introduction to some other advanced topics.
A Short Guide to Ruby on Rails - a nice introduction, followed by a short tutorial.
A Ruby Reference.
A glossary of Ruby terms.
Throughout the book, the author points out planned additions to version 1.9 of the Ruby language. Those changes would not make this book obsolete.
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