Eloquent Ruby is the first book I have people read; it shows Ruby as a language that reads like prose. English is the heart of ruby: methods read like english.
Example:
class Human
include Hungry
has_many :pizzas
end
Without knowing anything about Ruby, or Rails, you can deduce what the code is trying to say. (Or at least, you can tell the human is hungry and is about to eat some major pizzas)
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More About the Book: [EloquentRuby.com[(http://eloquentruby.com/)
Michael Fogus says that Eloquent Ruby is “the perfect book to highlight this masterful language and Russ’s blend of wit and wisdom is certain to entertain and inform.”
Peter Cooper thinks that Eloquent Ruby Rocks! He also says that “I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone except those who, well, could have written a similar book themselves. The short punchy chapters make it a delight to read and gives the option of reading it merely 10 minutes at a time before bed or similar. The short chapters also make it useful as a reference if you forget how to do a certain thing like, say, use method_missing, even though it’s not put together as a reference book at all. Lastly, this book is a must read if you’re not confident with Ruby idioms and the best way to structure and lay out your code – Russ’s approaches reinforce the current “standard” way to write Ruby and this alone is worth the price of admission.”