The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming, 3rd Edition

For more than a decade, Ruby developers have turned to The Ruby Way for reliable “how-to” guidance on effective Ruby programming. Now, Hal Fulton and André Arko have thoroughly updated this classic guide to cover new language enhancements and developers’ experiences through Ruby 2.1.

The new edition illuminates Ruby 2.1 through 400+ examples, each answering the question: “How do I do this in Ruby?” For each example, they present both a task description and realistic technical constraints. Next, they walk step-by-step through presenting one good solution, offering detailed explanations to promote deeper understanding.

Conveniently organized by topic, The Ruby Way, Third Edition makes it easier than ever to find the specific solution you want—and to write better code by reflecting Ruby’s unique philosophy and spirit.

Coverage includes

• Ruby 2.1 overview: terminology, philosophy, and basic principles
• Best practices for strings and regular expressions
• Efficiently internationalizing your code
• Performing calculations (including trigonometry, calculus, statistics, and time/date calculations)
• Working with “Rubyesque” objects such as symbols and ranges
• Using arrays, hashes, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, and other data structures
• Efficiently storing data with YAML, JSON, and SQLite3
• Leveraging object-oriented and dynamic features, from multiple constructors to program inspection
• Building GUIs with Shoes 4, Ruby/Tk, Ruby/GTK3, QtRuby, and other toolkits
• Improving thread performance by understanding Ruby’s synchronization methods and avoiding its pitfalls
• Automating system administration with Ruby
• Data formats: JSON, XML, RSS, Atom, RMagick, PDF, and more
• Testing and debugging with RSpec, Minitest, Cucumber, byebug, and pry
• Measuring Ruby program performance
• Packaging and distributing code, and managing dependencies with Bundler
• Network programming: clients, time servers, POP, SMTP, IMAP, Open-URI
• Web applications: HTTP servers, Rails, Sinatra, HTML generation, and more
• Writing distributed Ruby software with drb
• Choosing modern development tools that maximize your productivity

All source code for this book may be downloaded at www.rubyhacker.com/therubyway.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Ruby in Review
Chapter 2. Working with Strings
Chapter 3. Working with Regular Expressions
Chapter 4. Internationalization in Ruby
Chapter 5. Performing Numerical Calculations
Chapter 6. Symbols and Ranges
Chapter 7. Working with Times and Dates
Chapter 8. Arrays, Hashes, and Other Enumerables
Chapter 9. More Advanced Data Structures
Chapter 10. I/O and Data Storage
Chapter 11. OOP and Dynamic Features in Ruby
Chapter 12. Graphical Interfaces for Ruby
Chapter 13. Threads and Concurrency
Chapter 14. Scripting and System Administration
Chapter 15. Ruby and Data Formats
Chapter 16. Testing and Debugging
Chapter 17. Packaging and Distributing Code
Chapter 18. Network Programming
Chapter 19. Ruby and Web Applications
Chapter 20. Distributed Ruby
Chapter 21. Ruby Development Tools
Chapter 22. The Ruby Community