

Ruby: The Last Eight Years - r4um
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2350703

======
sapsan
That was nice to read. Ruby is new for me, so here's a question: is there some
classy guide (like LYAH for those who start learning Haskell) for Ruby
newbies?

~~~
roneesh
Depends on how you're a newbie!

New to coding - Chris Pine's Learn to Program is THE book. I like it more than
Why's guide, or any website.

New to OO - Try Sandi Metz's Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby, this
book should be your second ruby book, as it teaches you how to write good
Ruby.

New to Rails - Try the Hartl tutorial or Agile Web Development with Rails

New to Command Line Apps - Build Awesome Command Line Applications in Ruby,
it's an O'Reilly book I liked.

Advanced Ruby - Confident Ruby by Avdi Grimm, along with his Ruby Tapas
screncasts.

~~~
Buttons840
What book would you suggest for someone who is "New to Ruby"? What if I want
to learn Ruby without Rails?

~~~
chao-
If you have experience in another language, and once you've gotten the Ruby
syntax loaded into your brain (e.g. procs, lambdas, if/unless as a modifier,
case statements, define a class, how optional parens work) I can recommend two
options:

1\. The Pickaxe Book (Programming Ruby by PragDave). You can read the book
itself, but one thing I love is that it explains the entire stdlib in an
appendix. I learned a lot just by keeping it near the bathroom and flipping
through that appendix a few times each day.

2\. POODR by Sandi Metz (referenced above) is about OO but you will also get a
sense of how to write non-web, pure Ruby applications in a general sense.

------
lessthunk
Great article, by a very experienced Ruby hacker. Wish he were as active in
the community again, as he once was. Rumor says he is also looking into elixir
these days :-).

~~~
MrBra
It seems every Rubyist is looking into a variant of Ruby these days,
expecially those which compile down to machine code, usually.

I don't see it as a bad thing... it can only improve the Ruby environment in
the long run..

