Excerpted from Ruby for Rails by David A. Black

Although the Ruby on Rails framework is written in Ruby, it feels in some respects like a programming language unto itself. There are Rails idioms and conventions, just as there are Ruby idioms and conventions. The process of writing Rails appli- cations has a characteristic rhythm and feel that aren’t the same as the rhythm and feel of other Ruby-based environments. (Those are nice, too. They’re just different.)

Nonetheless, Ruby is the underlying, parent technology of Rails. When you’re working on a Rails program, you are, by definition, working on a Ruby program. It follows logically that the more you know about Ruby, the better you will be—the better you can be—at developing applications with Rails.

Even if you know little or no Ruby, you can probably get a Rails application up and running just by copying what others have done. But you won’t really under- stand it, and you certainly won’t be in a position to solve problems when they arise, nor to keep up knowledgeably with changes and updates in the Rails framework.

To do those things, you need a Ruby foundation. That’s what this book—written specifically for you, the Rails enthusiast who wants to do it right—will give you. Ruby for Rails is a Ruby how-to book, more than a Rails how-to book. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read Rails how-to books too. But if you’re serious about Rails, you should learn at least as much Ruby as this book contains.

A solid grounding in Ruby can serve you, as a Rails developer, in four ways:

• By helping you know what the code in your application (including Rails boilerplate code) is doing

• By helping you do more in, and with, your Rails applications than you can if you limit yourself to the readily available Rails idioms and techniques (as powerful as those are)

• By allowing you to familiarize yourself with the Rails source code, which in turn enables you to participate in discussions about Rails and perhaps even submit bug reports and code patches

• By giving you a powerful tool for administrative and organization tasks (for example, legacy code conversion) connected with your application