Should I Learn Ruby?

If you are new to programming, it can be hard to decide which language to learn. After all, there are so many, and, as a beginner, you may not know what each language is used for and why you would choose one language over another. In this article, we will take a look at the Ruby programming language and help you decide if it’s the language for you.

We’ll start by looking at why Ruby is a good choice for a beginner. After that, we’ll look at what Ruby is used for, how long it takes to learn, and more.

Why is Ruby a good choice for a beginner

Ruby is a free, open-source language, which means you can get started learning right now. It’s also a cross-platform programming language, which means that it doesn’t matter if your computer uses the Windows, Mac, or Linux operating system. You’ll be able to run Ruby code on your machine.

Many of the issues that beginners have with learning to program have to do with the “syntax” of the programming language. Many programming languages use special symbols and characters that you must remember for your code to run correctly. Ruby’s syntax is designed to be close to the English language, so you don’t have to spend much time memorizing what symbols mean to write code.

Ruby has a large community of developers who are willing to help beginners with questions. It is a popular programming language, and that means if you run into an issue and get stuck, there have been thousands of other programmers who have run into the same problem and can lend a hand at sites like Stack Overflow.

Ruby is also commonly used in startups because you can use it to build complete apps in a relatively short amount of time with a small team of developers. This translates into a lot of job opportunities if you know how to write Ruby code.

What is Ruby used for?

Ruby is a general-purpose programming language, which means that it can and has been used for many different types of coding projects. Here are a few of the places where it’s used:

Web development

Ruby is a popular language for web development because of a powerful web development framework called Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails was released in 2005 and was one of the most advanced web frameworks at the time. Since then, other frameworks have come out that emulate some of its features.

Ruby on Rails makes web development quicker and easier. It defines the structure of web applications so developers can get started coding right away instead of spending a lot of time setting things up. It comes with pre-built code libraries that you can use in coding projects to speed up development time. It also has code generators that will generate parts of your applications with simple commands.

Ruby on Rails’s rapid development process makes it a top choice for startups because a small team of developers can build full-scale apps in much less time than they could with other tools. Github, Shopify, Twitch, and Instacart all use Ruby on Rails.

DevOps

Ruby is also used in DevOps. Vagrant is a tool written in Ruby that allows developers to run another operating system when they are developing an app. Developers can create a Vagrant environment that matches the production environment you will deploy the app to. When they write code that runs in Vagrant on their machine, they can be sure it will work when it is released to production.

Chef and Puppet are two tools written in Ruby that configure a server or application with simple configuration files. Using these tools ensures that applications will run correctly wherever they are deployed.

Automation

Ruby is a handy scripting language that developers use to automate manual processes. Because it is concise and easy to write, simple scripts can be written quickly to save time and make work more efficient.

Web scraping and crawling

Another place you will find Ruby used is in web scrapers and crawlers. Ruby has libraries like Vessel that are used to crawl and download web pages quickly. Then, you can use libraries like Nokogiri to extract structured data from the HTML in the downloaded pages.

Data processing

The Ruby language is also well suited to data processing, cleaning, and filtering. There are several useful functions built into Ruby, including map, reduce, and select. These functions can effectively solve many problems related to data processing.

Can I learn Ruby by myself?

You can definitely learn Ruby on your own. In fact, many professional developers learned Ruby this way. After all, you don’t need a computer science degree to get a job as a programmer. You just need the skills.

Building your skills using Ruby on your own also lets you learn at your own pace. Our Learn Ruby course is designed for beginners. It will expose you to Ruby while also teaching the basic concepts of programming that will allow you to more easily learn to code in other languages as well.

How quickly can I learn Ruby?

How quickly you can learn a programming language depends on a variety of factors, including how much time you have to devote to learning and how much prior experience you have. With our Learn Ruby and Learn Ruby on Rails courses, it will take about 10 hours to get through the material. However, once you’re done, you’ll want to spend time practicing on your own and building projects to really master the language.