Practical Ruby Gems

This book provides an enormous code library that developers can use to improve their projects. It details 34 of the best and most useful Ruby Gems, from one that speeds up web applications to another that processes credit card payments.

Ruby is a programming language that's taking the open source world by storm. This book is a comprehensive guide to utilizing and creating Ruby Gems, ready-made Ruby code modules that can be easily added to Ruby and Rails projects. This book is a comprehensive guide to utilizing and creating Ruby Gems. Coverage provides an enormous code library that will help developers improve their projects. It details 34 of the best and most useful Gems, including ones to speed up web applications, process credit card payments, produce PDF documents, read and update RSS feeds, and acquire real-time shipping prices from FedEx and UPS. Each of these also comes complete with actual use cases and code examples that readers can immediately use in their own projects. In addition, the book describes how readers can package and distribute their own Ruby Gems and details how Gems differ between operating systems.

The only book to cover Ruby Gems; exploits a gap in the market. There is no direct competition

Will appeal to all members of the Ruby and also Rails webdev programming communities

Continues the Apress line of books focusing on practical real-world development with modern popular web development techniques

Autorentext
David Berube is a Ruby developer, trainer, author, and speaker. He's used both Ruby and Ruby on Rails for several years, starting in 2003 when he became a Ruby advocate after he wrote about the language for Dr Dobb's Journal. Prior to this, he worked professionally with PHP, Perl, C++, and Visual Basic. His professional accomplishments include creating the Ruby on Rails engine for CoolRuby.com, a site that tracks the latest Ruby developments, and working with ThoughtBot.com on the Rails engine that powers Sermo America's Top Doctor contest. Additionally, he has worked on several other Ruby projects, including the engine powering CyberKnowHow's BirdFluBreakingNews search engine, and he also created the Slueshi text adventure game system, a multiplayer text game engine written in Ruby. David's journalism has been in print in over 65 countries, in magazines such as Linux Magazine, Dr Dobb's Journal, and PHP International Magazine. He's also taught college courses and spoken publicly on topics such as "MySQL and You" and "Making Money with Open Source Software." He lives in New Hampshire and his hobbies include basketball, yo-yos, and sleep.

Klappentext
You'll also learn how to package and distribute your own Ruby Gems. This lets you tap into powerful mechanisms for resolving dependencies. And the book takes a detailed look at how Gems differ between operating systems, so you'll be prepared whether your desktop runs OS X, Windows, or Linux. You'll also learn how you can share code more easily between projects, optionally sharing your contributions with the world!

Inhalt

1. What Is RubyGems?
2. Installing RubyGems
3. Using RubyGems in Your Code
4. Managing Installed Gem Versions
5. Data Access with the ActiveRecord Gem
6. Easy Text Markup with the BlueCloth Gem
7. Creating Web Applications with Camping
8. Creating Command-Line Utilities with cmdparse
9. HTML Templating with erubis
10. Parsing Feeds with feedtools
11. Creating Graphical User Interfaces with fxruby
12. Retrieving Stock Quotes with YahooFinance
13. Parsing HTML with hpricot
14. Writing HTML as Ruby with Markaby
15. Parsing CSV with fastercsv
16. Multiple Dispatch with multi
17. Serving Web Applications with mongrel
18. Transferring Files Securely with net-sftp
19. Executing Commands on Remote Servers with net-ssh
20. Validating Credit Cards with creditcard
21. Writing PDFs with pdf-writer
22. Handling Recurring Events with runt
23. Building Websites with Rails
24. Automating Development Tasks with rake
25. Manipulating Images with RMagick
26. Speeding Up Web Applications with memcache-client
27. Managing Zip Archives with rubyzip
28. Speeding Up Function Calls with memoize
29. Tagging MP3 Files with id3lib-ruby
30. Shortening URLs with shorturl
31. Creating Standalone Ruby Applications with rubyscript2exe
32. Cleaning Dirty HTML with tidy
33. Parsing XML with xml-simple
34. Creating Our Own Gems
35. Distributing Gems