"Everyday Scripting With Ruby" addresses its three target audiences well:
The first audience: The person who is doing repetitive or manual tasks that could be automated by scripts, but "thinks programming is too hard."
For that audience, the book is a fine introduction to the Ruby language using practical scripts.
The major example scripts are:
* Comparing files in two different directories and reporting the differences.
* An example of automated testing.
* A reporting script for a version control system.
* A script that visits a web site, "scrapes" data from the page, and prepares it for import into a spreadsheet.
* A "watchdog" script that keeps an eye on long-running programs or tests and sends an email or instant message when they finish.
These scripts will be a fine start to your own scripting library, and portions of them will be useful in writing scripts to solve your own problems.
The scripts are improved iteratively, and each iteration provides compelling motivation and a context for learning the next set of Ruby language features.
The second audience: "The person who gets bogged down when writing or changing larger scripts."
This book teaches modern programming techniques that assist in managing complexity, such as test-driven development, "borrowing other people's work in bits in pieces, growing programs gradually, and constantly keeping them clean."
The third audience: "For the person who knows the wrong languages [for scripting purposes] well." It is much easier to write scripts in Ruby than in many other languages. Ruby also compares favorably to other scripting languages such as Perl, Python, or shell scripting (like Bash.) It is easy to read and make changes to a Ruby program that you wrote six months ago.
Ruby on Rails is the web framework that is driving a lot of interest in the Ruby language, and this book would serve as a good introduction to the Ruby language before tackling Rails. An understanding of the Ruby language is essential to understanding Rails.
"Everyday Scripting With Ruby" is well organized and well written. It's a very easy read, and a great introduction to Ruby and scripting.
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