Programming Ruby — colloquially known as the "Pickaxe Book" due to its cover art — is widely regarded as the definitive reference for the Ruby programming language. Written by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt (the Pragmatic Programmers), it covers the language comprehensively from beginner topics to advanced idioms.
Read Online
Programming Ruby — rubyobjc.com
Read the Pickaxe book online, hosted on rubyobjc.com as part of the Ruby Documentation Project.
Programming Ruby — Ruby Central
Read the Pickaxe book online via Ruby Central, Inc. The full text freely available to the Ruby community.
Download / Purchase
Palm PDB (iSilo format)
Download Programming Ruby as an iSilo PDB file for Palm handheld devices. Take the full reference with you anywhere.
Buy in Print — ISBN 0201710897
Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas & Andy Hunt. Compare prices across booksellers via isbn.nu.
About the Book
Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide was the first major English-language book on Ruby, and helped introduce the language to a wide audience outside Japan. It covers:
- Ruby language fundamentals: syntax, types, expressions, control flow
- Object-oriented programming with Ruby classes and modules
- The standard library and built-in classes
- Extending Ruby with C extensions
- Practical topics: threads, I/O, unit testing, web programming
- Complete reference section for all standard classes and methods
The first edition (ISBN 0201710897) is freely available online courtesy of the authors and Ruby Central. Later editions cover Ruby 1.8 and beyond.
Also of interest: the Dr. Dobb's Journal article on Programming in Ruby, written by the same authors.