Jay McGavren was doing automation for a hotel services company when a colleague introduced him to Programming Perl (a.k.a. the Camel Book). It made him an instant Perl convert, as he liked actually writing code instead of waiting for a 10-person development team to configure a build system. It also gave him the crazy idea to write a technical book someday.

In 2007, with Perl sputtering, Jay was looking for a new interpreted language. With its strong object-orientation, excellent library support, and incredible flexibility, Ruby immediately won him over. He's since used Ruby for two game libraries, a generative art project, in support of a Java development job, and as a Ruby on Rails freelancer. He's been been working in Rails in the online developer education space since 2011

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Head First Ruby uses an engaging, active approach to learning that goes beyond dry, abstract explanations and reference manuals. This Head First guide teaches you the Ruby language in a concrete way that gets your neurons zapping and helps you become a Ruby genius. You'll enter at Ruby's language basics and work through progressively advanced Ruby features such as classes, inheritance, and blocks. As your Ruby skills grow, you'll tackle deep topics such as exception handling, modules, and mixins. You'll end by writing your own web app.