Ruby can delimit strings with single quotes 'like this' or double quotes "like this". It turns out that double-quoted strings can do a special trick – they can evaluate embedded Ruby code. This lesson explains the fundamentals.

An introduction to objects and methods. How to use the standard methods of Ruby objects and how to create objects with methods of their own.

Hands-on sessions are where I encourage you to get at your keyboard and try out bits of Ruby. This hands-on session doesn't introduce new concepts but it does give you some guidance on how to experiment with Ruby as an aid to your study.

Now we’ll look at how multiple objects can be created from a class and we’ll see how to create and access ‘instance variables’ to store different data for each object.

How to initialize an object’s data at the time of creation using the initialize() method and how to look inside objects using the inspect() and p() methods.

In this step you will learn how to create class hierarchies in Ruby so that descendent classes inherit the features of their ancestors.

This video summarizes the essentials of class inheritance in which different ‘branches’ of subclasses can descend from a common ancestor.

We look at simple ways of creating 'attributes' to access instance variables without having to write 'getter' and 'setter' methods.

What is the difference between an @instance_variable and a @@class_variable? This video explains...

An introduction to creating arrays in Ruby, including arrays of mixed types. How to index a single array item and how to append arrays.

How to index multiple sequential elements in an array, how to specify ranges of elements, and how to iterate over array items.

Time to get back to your keyboard and do some hands-on coding. In this video I suggest that you copy and paste code from the documentation of Ruby's class library. That's a great way to learn about the classes and methods available!

Hashes (or 'dictionaries') let you create lists of objects indexed using a key – for example, a string key such as "chocolate cake" may index a value such as the cake’s recipe. This step explains the fundamentals of hashes.

Ruby can return arrays of all the keys and values found in a hash. You can then use array methods to add, delete, reverse and append one array to another.

How to repeat actions and iterate over collections using for and while loops and some special Ruby methods.

Ruby uses Blocks to perform iterative actions. But there is more to Blocks than meets the eye. In a sense, a Ruby Block is like a method without a name. This video explains.

How to perform tests using 'if', 'elseif' and 'case' statements along with a number of operators to determine whether test conditions are true or false.

Ruby has quite a few Boolean operators to test true/false values. They may look simple enough at first sight but be careful. They may not always work quite as you expect!

Modules let you wrap up code for easy reuse – they also provide some of the features of multiple inheritance without the complexities.

What is the difference between a local and a global variable? And when is a constant not a constant?