Discover Ruby's simplicity and power through hands-on practice. Gain insights into variables, built-in classes, objects, and more, making you productive and happy with programming.

Do you want to learn about interpreted languages? Tired of dense syntaxes? Tired of compiling code to machine language first? Are you looking for an easy-to-use scripting language? Well, Ruby is the answer!

Ruby is a smart, easy-to-use, functional, object-oriented programming language, a wondrous mix of Perl's scripting power, Pythonic capabilities, and more! As Matsumoto, creator of Ruby, implies: "I hope to see Ruby help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language."

This introductory course provides hands-on practice with the support of interactive illustrations, exercises, and the integral topics of variables, built-in classes, objects, conditionals, blocks, and more!

Ready to dive into one of the most influential and demanding third-generation programming languages? Let's get started!

Learn Ruby from Scratch

Which instance method name doesn’t violate Ruby conventions?

Which instance method name doesn’t violate Ruby conventions?

```ruby
class Test
  	def self.foo
      puts "in foo!"
    end
  
  	def bar
      puts "in bar!"
    end
end
```

What’s the `bar` method in this code?

<pre><code class="language-ruby">class Test
 	def self.foo
 puts &quot;in foo!&quot;
 end
 
 	def bar
 puts &quot;in bar!&quot;
 end
end
</code></pre>
What’s the <code>bar</code> method in this code?

**(True or False)** An attribute reader returns the value of a class variable.

(True or False) An attribute reader returns the value of a class variable.

**(True or False)** An object's scope holds all instance variables and method names.

(True or False) An object’s scope holds all instance variables and method names.

The Big Picture

Variables

Built-in Class: Numeric

Built-in Class: String

Built-in Classes: TrueClass, FalseClass, and NilClass

Built-in Class: Symbol

Built-in Class: Array

Built-in Class: Hash

Objects

Methods

Operators are Methods

Blocks

Get Ready for Some More Drill!

Conditionals

Coding Challenge: Truthiness and Equivalence

Lets Run Another Lap with Hashes

Writing Classes

The Mailbox Project

Spotlight on Things Unremarked

Advanced Topics

Your Toolkit

Appendix: Mailbox Project Prerequisite

Quiz on Classes