Ruby

If you're looking for a programming language that values productivity over optimization, then Ruby is definitely for you.

Ruby syntax is intuitive and has striking resemblance to the English language.
- So, if you are like me and did poorly in English class as a child, this is a win-win to brush up on grammar rules and Ruby.
- Otherwise, have a fun time learning Ruby and mastering it in no time.

Getting Started

# macOS
brew install ruby
# Debian
apt install ruby-full

There's also some debate as to what the canonical implementation of Ruby is this days. I've seen JRuby become more popular, so I've included the steps to install it on macOS below:

curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable

<<-EOF
# Source ruby environment command
if [[ -e ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm ]]; then
	source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm
fi
EOF >> ~/.zshrc

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm

rvm install jruby

Input/Output

aka I/O - it's not rocket science, just computer science

Basic input is read in from the command line

var_name = gets.chomp  #command line input

There are two types of print statements in ruby:

print - no newline
puts - adds a newline after output

var_string = "Welcome to the wiki"
print var_string	#1. no newline
puts var_string		#2. w/ newline

String Manipulation

Ruby includes given methods for various string manipulation techniques. Calling any of the following methods with the last character as '!' modifies the string in place vs. creating a copy.

Create uppercase string - .upcase

to_upper = "John".upcase
to_upper.upcase!

Create lowercase string - .downcase

to_lower = "Cameron".downcase
to_lower.downcase!

Create reverse string - .reverse

rev = "Austin".reverse
rev.reverse!

Create string with first char capitalized- .capitalize

first_capped = "Chase".upcase
first_capped.upcase!

Conditional Statements

if/elsif/else blocks check if statements evaluate as true.

a = "Yes"
b = "No"

if a == "Yes"
	print "a wins"
elsif b == "No"
	print "b wins"
else
	print "NGL ... so confused RN Bruh"
end

unless/else blocks check if statements evaluate as false.

a = false
unless a
	print "a loses"
else
	print "a wins"
end

Ruby also supports ternary conditional expressions and case statements. The following three code blocks are identical in practice.

In my opinion, ternary conditional expressions tend to have a cleaner syntax.

#global variable for consistency --> Not Good in Practice
a = true

#Classic Conditional Expression
if a == true
	print "a wins"
else
	print "a loses"
end

#Ternary Conditional Expression
print a == true ? "a wins" : "a loses"

#Case Conditional Statement
case a
	when a == true
		puts "a wins"
	else
		puts "a loses"
end

Data Structures

Coming Soon Friends...

Managing Gems

Updating Gems

Check if any gems need to be updated

gem outdated
gem update <gem_name>

By default, ruby will keep old versions of gems, so after updating, it's good to run the cleanup command

gem cleanup

Uninstalling Gems

Find where a gem is installed

gem which <gem_name>

Uninstall a single gem

gem uninstall <gem_name>

Uninstall all gems with no confirmation

gem uninstall -aIx

Bundler

Nowadays bundler is built into Ruby 2.6, so keep on using it.

Jekyll

Previewing the website

It's a good idea to make sure the website looks correct before pushing your repository to GitHub. You can do that by running the following command inside the root directory of your project

bundle exec jekyll serve

You can close the server by issuing the following command in any directory

pkill jekyll

Variable Substitution

You can substitute variables inside of strings using the #{varname} syntax:

name = "tommy"
puts "Hello, #{name}!"
# => `Hello, tommy!`

Heredoc

# Use `<<-` to preserve leading whitespace
puts <<-EOF
  one
    two
      three
    four
  five
EOF

Since Ruby 2.3, the <<~ heredoc strips leading whitespace

# Use `<<~` to strip leading whitespace
def make_doc(body)
  <<~EOF
  <html lang="en-US">
    <body>
      #{body}
    </body>
  </html>
  EOF
end