Chapter 3. Ruby's Data Types

Ruby is designed to make programmers happy.

—Yukihiro Matsumoto, Creator of Ruby

Ruby on Rails lets you create Web applications in Ruby. Working with Rails without a proper understanding of the essentials of the Ruby language is akin to creating ASP.NET applications without possessing any knowledge of .NET-enabled languages. In both cases, the language used in order to work with the framework is a strict prerequisite.

Many beginners try this approach because they're eager to get started with Rails. Unfortunately for them, they end up wasting more time than if they'd picked up the basics of the language first, and then moved on to Rails.

Trying to learn both Ruby and Rails at the same time can work for some, but passing over Ruby altogether is a huge mistake. For this reason, unless you are already well versed in Ruby, it's recommended that you don't skip over this and the next chapter.