Documentation

Guides, tutorials, and reference material to help you learn more about Ruby

Installing Ruby

Although you can easily try Ruby in your browser, you can also read the installation guide for help on installing Ruby.

Ruby Language Documentation

The authoritative Ruby language documentation at docs.ruby-lang.org is the place to start if you want to understand Ruby. It covers all aspects of the language and should be the first place you look when learning or referencing Ruby programming language. Other resources listed below are complementary to the official language documentation or they present Ruby documentation in a different format/style/flavor.

Getting Started

Official FAQ
The official frequently asked questions.
Ruby Koans
The Koans walk you along the path to enlightenment in order to learn Ruby. The goal is to learn the Ruby language, syntax, structure, and some common functions and libraries. We also teach you culture.
Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
An unconventional but interesting book that will teach you Ruby through stories, wit, and comics. Originally created by why the lucky stiff, this guide remains a classic for Ruby learners.
Ruby Essentials
A free on-line book designed to provide a concise and easy to follow guide to learning Ruby.
Learn to Program
A wonderful little tutorial by Chris Pine for programming newbies. If you don’t know how to program, start here.
Learn Ruby the Hard Way
A very good set of exercises with explanations that guide you from the absolute basics of Ruby all the way to OOP and web development.

Manuals

Programming Ruby
The seminal work on Ruby in English, this first edition of the Pragmatic Programmers’ book is available for free online.
The Ruby Programming Wikibook
A free online manual with beginner and intermediate content plus a thorough language reference.

Reference Documentation

Official API Documentation
The official Ruby language documentation for different versions including the currently unreleased (trunk) version.
Ruby C API Reference
The official introduction to Ruby’s C API. Great if you want to write C extensions or contribute to Ruby’s development.
RubyDoc.info
The one-stop web site for reference documentation about Ruby gems and GitHub-hosted Ruby projects.
RubyAPI.org
Easily find and browse Ruby classes, modules, and methods.

Editors and IDEs

For coding in Ruby, you can use the default editor of your operating system. By the way, to be more effective in coding, it is worth choosing a source code editor with basic Ruby support (e.g. syntax-highlighting, file browsing) or an integrated development environment with advanced features (e.g. code completion, refactoring, testing support).

Here is a list of popular tools used by Rubyists:

Further Reading

Ruby-doc.org maintains a comprehensive list of English documentation sources. If you have questions about Ruby the mailing list is a great place to start.