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The Ruby Workshop
The Ruby Workshop

The Ruby Workshop: Develop powerful applications by writing clean, expressive code with Ruby and Ruby on Rails

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Profile Icon Akshat Paul Profile Icon Wallace Profile Icon Dániel Szabó Profile Icon Philips
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€32.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3 (3 Ratings)
Paperback Oct 2019 544 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Akshat Paul Profile Icon Wallace Profile Icon Dániel Szabó Profile Icon Philips
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€32.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3 (3 Ratings)
Paperback Oct 2019 544 pages 1st Edition
eBook
€17.99 €26.99
Paperback
€32.99
Subscription
Free Trial
Renews at €18.99p/m
eBook
€17.99 €26.99
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The Ruby Workshop

2. Ruby Data Types and Operations

Overview

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to perform operations on arrays and hashes; use Ruby methods on arrays and hashes; create your own Ruby method and write a Ruby program for rolling dice.

Introduction

In the previous chapter, we studied variables, constants, strings, and various data types. We performed various operations on strings and numbers. We were also introduced to the Interactive Ruby Shell (IRB), which makes coding in Ruby easier.

This chapter is dedicated to bringing you up to speed with arrays, hashes, and methods in Ruby. You could say that these are among the most fundamental topics. We will take a closer look at the different ways of creating arrays and hashes, as there are a wide variety of options. We'll also look at methods, which is another essential concept in Ruby and study certain rules about arguments that you should be aware of while creating methods. After that, you have the fundamentals to become a fine Ruby developer.

Arrays

An array is a data structure that contains a list of values called elements. Arrays can be an ordered, integer-indexed collection of any object. Ruby arrays can have objects such as Integer, String, Symbol, Fixnum, and Hash, or even other arrays, as elements. In many languages, arrays are rigid in terms of their size. In Ruby, however, an array increases its size as elements are added.

When we say ordered, we mean that the array will keep track of how the elements are inserted or removed from it. While fetching the data from an array, we can retrieve the values directly based on the position of the element. This will become clearer as we dive into the depths of data extraction and manipulation using arrays.

Integer-indexed means that each element in the array is linked to an index. In Ruby, we can fetch the data from an array based on the index irrespective of the value at that location. Like most other languages, array indexes in Ruby start from zero.

Ruby is very...

Hashes

Hashes are collections that save data as key-value pairs. This means that a key will identify every value that we want to save. This also means that keys within a hash have to be unique, otherwise we will overwrite the old values.

In terms of performance, hashes have a lookup time of O(1), which means that finding a value in a hash by its key will not be dependent on the size of the hash, nor on the order in which the hash was created. O(1) means a constant lookup time for the operation performed on a hash, irrespective of the data size. This differs from arrays, where finding a value in an O(n) operation means that the time taken to find an element in an array will be dependent on the length of an array. This means that we are looking for an element and we are going to find it on the nth location; the n does not denote the size of the array, but the location of the element.

An empty hash can be created as follows:

my_hash = {}
my_hash = Hash.new

The output will...

Ruby Methods

A method in Ruby is a set of expressions that return a value. These are similar to functions in other programming languages. Methods are defined using the def keyword, followed by the method name and then by optional parameters. The method body is enclosed between the preceding definition and the end keyword at the bottom:

def my_method
##method body
end

By convention, method names should begin with a lowercase letter, otherwise Ruby might consider it to be a constant while parsing. Also, names that have multiple words should be separated by an underscore. As in the preceding examples, the method name – my_method, has an underscore between two words.

Passing Arguments to a Method

We can pass arguments to the method on which a method has to operate. There is no limit in terms of the number of parameters that we can pass to a method. The following is a simple example of how we can create our own methods in Ruby:

def add_two_numbers a, b
  ...

Summary

In this chapter, we took a journey into data types and some very common operations that can be performed on them. We started out with array operations and took a closer look at adding, removing, and iterating over this data type. Then, we moved on to the hash data type and discovered the hidden magic that powers most of the web and desktop applications written in Ruby. Hashes are a very common way to store and manipulate data inside web applications. We added, removed, and iterated over hashes, and then performed some symbol-based sorting with nested hashes. Our final destination in this chapter was the methods and functions that allow us to create either functional or procedural applications in Ruby. Functions and methods in themselves are not of much use, so we imbued them with arguments. We also took a closer look at how optional and default arguments are handled in case multiple arguments are passed. This constituted a very important chapter, namely, how the extra arguments...

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Key benefits

  • Learn the fundamentals of Ruby object-oriented programming (OOP)
  • Use the Ruby on Rails framework to build interactive web applications
  • Discover how to quickly build complex programs with fewer lines of code

Description

The beauty of Ruby is its readability and expressiveness. Ruby hides away a lot of the complexity of programming, allowing you to work quickly and 'do more' with fewer lines of code. This makes it a great programming language for beginners, but learning any new skill can still be a daunting task. If you want to learn to code using Ruby, but don't know where to start, The Ruby Workshop will help you cut through the noise and make sense of this fun, flexible language. You'll start by writing and running simple code snippets and Ruby source code files. After learning about strings, numbers, and booleans, you'll see how to store collections of objects with arrays and hashes. You'll then learn how to control the flow of a Ruby program using boolean logic. The book then delves into OOP and explains inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism. Gradually, you'll build your knowledge of advanced concepts by learning how to interact with external APIs, before finally exploring the most popular Ruby framework ? Ruby on Rails ? and using it for web development. Throughout this book, you'll work on a series of realistic projects, including simple games, a voting application, and an online blog. By the end of this Ruby book, you'll have the knowledge, skills and confidence to creatively tackle your own ambitious projects with Ruby.

Who is this book for?

The Ruby Workshop is designed for anyone who is new to Ruby and wants a practical introduction to the language. Whether you're completely new to programming, or have experience in another language and want to broaden your skillset, this book will quickly get you up and running.

What you will learn

  • Master the syntax and features of Ruby to build useful applications
  • Use common design patterns to simplify code and improve efficiency
  • Understand how to implement object-oriented programming with Ruby
  • Explore ways to fetch, process, and output data
  • Work with public APIs and create reusable RubyGems
  • Debug code to troubleshoot application behavior
  • Create interactive web applications with Ruby on Rails
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Publication date : Oct 31, 2019
Length: 544 pages
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Language : English
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Product Details

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Length: 544 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781838642365
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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
1. Writing and Running Ruby Programs Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Ruby Data Types and Operations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Program Flow Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ruby Methods Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Object-Oriented programming with Ruby Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Modules and Mixins Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Introduction to Ruby Gems Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Debugging with Ruby Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Ruby Beyond the Basics l Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Ruby Beyond the Basics ll Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Introduction to Ruby on Rails l Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
12. Introduction to Ruby on Rails ll Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3
(3 Ratings)
5 star 33.3%
4 star 33.3%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 33.3%
Kodzo Oct 22, 2024
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Great content
Subscriber review Packt
Dave Patrick Sep 11, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
One of the best books to start your programming career as it has lot of examples and learning with examples gives confidence. The writers have explained enough theory and in a simple manner. There are also activities that further helps in implementing the concept you have studied. Overall it's an amazing book for those starting with a programming career and as advised by my teachers Ruby is wonderful language to learn and understand programming. I highly recommend this book for new developers. My next ruby book would be well-grounded Rubyist same teachers have who recommended this books have suggested it as next step.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Jerry P. Brook Jan 07, 2020
Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1
I was very disappointed with this book.What I expected from a workshop, was explanations with examples and exercises.That is, explanations of the various entities of the Ruby programming language, such as the many data types; numbers, strings, collections, et cetera. What they are, and why you would use them.With examples of how to use them, and maybe even how not to use them.Exercises allowing the reader to test out that knowledge, and to become comfortable with the ways in which each data type acts, and what you get in return. Hands on testing of various scenarios, some good and some not so good, in order to build the readers understanding.I would have really appreciated the gotchas, that is, the ways that some of these items don’t work, even though one might have expected something different. Ruby is supposed to be the language of “least surprise”, however, there still are some.I haven’t seen the gotchas pointed out in any other books, and so I wasn’t expecting them here either. It’s always easier to show all the things that do work, and conveniently avoid the things that don’t. But that just causes frustration for the new learner as they think that they are doing something incorrectly, when that isn’t the case.So, what do you get?Well, the book begins in the middle of the language, expecting the reader to have a full understanding of the core concepts. From their they only provide brief descriptions of the concepts that they cover, and they follow the age old “type this and get that”.It is training not teaching, just robotic-ally do this and you will see this in return. Why do we get that? Don’t ask. How is it working? Don’t ask. What if we typed something else? Don’t bother.This neither a new, or interactive, approach to learning.To which I say don’t bother wasting your money on this book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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