Ruby on Rails® Bible

Chapter 1. Learning Ruby

Ruby on Rails is a Web application development framework built using the Ruby programming language. Ruby is a dynamic language that was created in Japan by Yukihiro Matsumoto. You'll often see Matsumoto referred to simply as Matz. While Ruby had been growing and flourishing in Japan and Europe, it took the Rails framework to finally thrust Ruby into the limelight in the United States. Ruby is steadily growing in popularity worldwide as a programming language of choice.

It is often described as an elegant language that allows developers to create concise and very readable code.

If you already consider yourself a Ruby expert, you can probably skip this chapter; otherwise, I highly recommend reading this chapter before getting into the details of using Rails. A solid knowledge of the Ruby programming language makes an excellent foundation for learning and using the Ruby on Rails framework. A solid understanding of Ruby will also help you if you want to explore the internals of Rails. Remember that Rails is an open source project, meaning that all of its source code is available to anyone who wants to look at it. You can learn a great deal about advanced Ruby techniques from reading the Rails source code. The power of Ruby plays a large part in the success of the Rails framework.

The Nature of Ruby

Programming languages tend to have various elements of commonality. I'm not referring to the syntax of a language, but rather higher-level designs that apply to a programming ...