Shad

I’ve been raving about Ruby and Ruby on Rails for a few weeks now, so I thought I should actually put together some links for those of you that might be interested in learning more.

Ruby is the most fascinating language I’ve ever seen. It’s extremely readable and contains the most advanced metamodeling capabilities that I’ve ever seen (note: I’m NOT talking about class hierarchies).

Here’s an excerpt from the 2nd link…

“Ruby will teach you to express your ideas through a computer. You will be writing stories for a machine. Creative skills, people. Deduction. Reason. Nodding intelligently. The language will become a tool for you to better connect your mind to the world. I’ve noticed that many experienced users of Ruby seem to be clear thinkers and objective. (In contrast to: heavily biased and coarse.)”

This puzzle is a great introduction:
Dwemthy’s Array

This guide is a bit simplistic, but makes for a good read:
why’s (poignant) guide to ruby

Once you’ve got the basics under your belt, take a look at Ruby on Rails

Rails takes Ruby and creates a framework around it for creating database backed web-applications (including AJAX functionality). If nothing else, check out the videos. Note the speed at which you can put together real web applications. In one video, the speaker builds an entire blogging system, with comments, in 15 mins. Every aspect is demonstrated, from Table creation to front end widgets.