Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids

The Ruby programming language is perfect for beginners: easy to learn, powerful, and fun to use! But wouldn’t it be more fun if you were learning with the help of some wizards and dragons?

Ruby Wizardry is a playful, illustrated tale that will teach you how to program in Ruby by taking you on a fantastical journey. As you follow the adventures of young heroes Ruben and Scarlet, you’ll learn real programming skills, like how to:

• Use fundamental concepts like variables, symbols, arrays, and strings
• Work with Ruby hashes to create a programmable breakfast menu
• Control program flow with loops and conditionals to help the Royal Plumber
• Test your wild and crazy ideas in IRB and save your programs as scripts
• Create a class of mini-wizards, each with their own superpower!
• Organize and reuse your code with methods and lists
• Write your own amazing interactive stories using Ruby

Along the way, you’ll meet colorful characters from around the kingdom, like the hacker Queen, the Off-White Knight, and Wherefore the minstrel. Ruby Wizardry will have you (or your little wizard) hooked on programming in no time.

For ages 10+ (and their parents!)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: What This Book’s About
Chapter 2: The King and His String
Chapter 3: Pipe Dreams
Chapter 4: Staying in the Loop
Chapter 5: Array of Sunshine and Hash on the Range
Chapter 6: The (Chunky) Bacon to Ruby’s Hash
Chapter 7: The Magic of Methods and Blocks
Chapter 8: Everything Is an Object (Almost)
Chapter 9: Inheriting the Magic of Ruby
Chapter 10: A Horse of a Different Color
Chapter 11: Second Time’s the Charm
Chapter 12: Reading, Writing, and Ruby Magic
Chapter 13: Follow the WEBrick Road
Chapter 14: Where to Go Next

Appendix A: Installing Ruby on Mac and Linux
Appendix B: Troubleshooting