Coding For Dummies

Chapter 13

Getting Familiar with Ruby

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding Ruby principles and style

Assigning variables and using if statements

Manipulating strings for consistency and formatting

I hope Ruby helps every programmer be productive, enjoy programming, and be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language.

— YUKIHIRO MATSUMOTO, CREATOR OF RUBY

Ruby is a server-side language created by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, a developer who was looking for an easy-to-use scripting language. Matsumoto had experience programming in other languages like Perl and Python, and, unsatisfied with both, created Ruby. When designing Ruby, Matsumoto’s explicit goal was to “make programmers happy”, and he created the language so programmers could easily learn it and use it. It worked. Today Ruby, and particularly Ruby working with a Ruby framework called Rails, is the most popular way for startups and companies to quickly create prototypes and launch websites on the Internet.

In this chapter, you learn Ruby basics, including its design philosophy; how to write Ruby code to perform basic tasks; and steps to create your first Ruby program.

What Does Ruby Do?

Ruby is a general purpose programming language typically used for web development. Until now, the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript you have learned in the previous chapters has not allowed for storing data after the user has navigated away from the page or closed the browser. Ruby makes it easy to store this data, and create, update, store, and ...