Chapter 1Getting Started

We’ll be using three main tools when we program: a text editor (to write your programs), the Ruby interpreter (to run your programs), and your command line (which is how you tell your computer which programs you want to run).

Although there’s pretty much just one Ruby interpreter and one command line, there are many text editors to choose from—and some are much better for programming than others. A good text editor can help catch many of those “stupid mistakes” that beginner programmers make…oh, all right, that all programmers make. It makes your code much easier for yourself and others to read in a number of ways: by helping with indentation and formatting, by letting you set markers in your code (so you can easily ...

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