Ruby Developer's Guide" discusses the role of Ruby in real-world applications, including the use of databases and XML, the coding of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) by means of different toolkits, communicating with other languages over SOAP/XML-RPC or sockets, and the programming of concurrent and distributed applications. Using step-by-step examples and real-world applications, the book is designed for programmers and developers looking to embrace the object-oriented features and functionality of this robust programming language.