Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. It was also influenced by Eiffel and Lisp. Ruby was first designed and developed in the mid-1990s by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto in Japan. Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented, imperative and reflective. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Smalltalk, Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, Pike, and CLU.

Rails (Ruby on Rails) is an open source full-stack web application framework for the Ruby programming language. Ruby on Rails is not to be confused with Ruby, which is a general-purpose programming language, on which Ruby on Rails runs. Ruby itself existed for more than 10 years before the first release of Ruby on Rails. Rails is a full-stack framework, meaning that it gives the Web developer the full ability to gather information from the web server, talking to or querying the database, and template rendering out of the box. As a result, Rails features a routing system that is independent of the Web server.

A PDF collection of 114 eBooks about Ruby and Rails. eBooks are sorted on publisher's name.