书名：Ruby程序设计语言（影印版）

作者：David Flanagan, Yukihiro Matsumoto 著

国内出版社：东南大学出版社

出版时间：2008年05月

页数：429

书号：978-7-5641-0839-7

原版书出版商：O'Reilly Media

 

David Flanagan是Mozilla的软件工程师，为O'Reilly撰写了若干 著作，包括《JavaScript权威指南》《Ruby编程语言》，以及本版的先前版本。

David Flanagan是一名程序员，也是一名作家，它的个人网站是http://davidflanagan.com。他在O’Reilly出版的其他畅销书还包括《JavaScript Pocket Reference》、《The Ruby Programming Language》以及《Java in a Nutshell》。David毕业于麻省理工学院，获得计算机科学与工程学位。他和妻子和孩子一起生活在西雅图和温哥华之间的美国太平洋西北海岸。

 

 

 

Yukihiro Matsumoto（"Matz"）：Ruby的缔造者，一位专业程序员，为日本开源软件公司netlab.jp工作。Matz也是日本开源软件的布道者，发布了若干开源产品，cmail是其中之一，这是一个基于Emacs的邮件用户代理，完全用Emacs Lisp语言编写。Ruby是第一款他在日本之外被广泛熟知的软件。

Yukihiro Matsumoto (“Matz”), the creator of Ruby, is a professional programmer who worked for the Japanese open source company netlab.jp. Matz is also known as one of the open source evangelists in Japan. He’s released several open source products,including cmail, the Emacs-based mail user agent, written entirely in Emacs lisp. Ruby
is his first piece of software that has become known outside of Japan.

 

 

The animals on the cover of The Ruby Programming Language are Horned Sungem
hummingbirds (Heliactin bilophus). These small birds are native to South America,
living mainly in Brazil and Bolivia. They prefer dry, open habitats such as grasslands,
and they avoid dense or humid forests.
Hummingbirds have the fastest wingbeat of all birds, and the Horned Sungem is capable
of 90 wingbeats per second. (Contrast that with the vulture, the slowest of all birds,
capable of just 1 wingbeat per second.) Because hummingbirds are so fast and light,
they are able to hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings. They can also fly
backward (the only birds who can do so) in order to keep position as they drink nectar
from flowers. Their long, thin bills allow them to reach deep within blossoms. Fittingly,
the Portuguese word for hummingbird is beija-flor, or “the bird that kisses flowers.”
The English word, of course, comes from the hum made by its fast-moving wings.
The male Horned Sungem has tufts of red, blue, and gold feathers on either side of its
head. Its back is iridescent green, its throat and breast are black, and its belly is white.
It has a long, pointed tail. The female looks similar to the male but lacks the dramatic
crown pattern. Because of the hummingbird’s vibrant colors, early Spanish explorers
named it Joyas voladoras, or “flying jewel.”
There are many myths about hummingbirds. In Brazil, a black hummingbird is a sign
of a death in the family. The ancient Aztecs honored them, and priests used staffs
covered with their feathers to remove curses. The hummingbird is also a symbol of
resurrection, as Aztecs believed that dead warriors were reincarnated as these birds.
The Aztec god of the Sun and war, Huitzilopochtli, was represented as one; his name
means “Hummingbird from the south,” the south being the location of the spirit world.