Learn the basics of Ruby with hands-on practice.

Become a Ruby Professional

Do you want to be an interpreted language geek? Are you tired of getting entangled in the dense syntaxes? Does it irritate you to compile your code to machine language first? Are you looking for an easy-to-use scripting language? Well, Ruby is the best pick for you then!
This introductory module will be providing you with hands-on practice with the support of a bunch of interactive illustrations, exercises, and the integral topics of variables, built-in classes, objects, conditionals, blocks, and much more!

Learn Ruby from Scratch

We’ve learned that objects come with lots of methods attached to them. We’ve seen how we can use them to do interesting things with the object by way of calling these methods.

Now, try running the following code:


puts is_a?(Object)
#true
puts methods
#[:to_s, :inspect, ... ]

> **Note:** We can use some methods in Ruby without even defining an object at all. They’re already there. The `is_a?` method tells us that this already is an object, whatever this is.

This is a rather remarkable concept, so we’ll explore it in depth.

## What is the top-level object?

Whenever we open IRB (an interactive Ruby environment, more on this [later](https://www.educative.io/courses/learn-ruby-from-scratch/interactive-ruby-shell)) and it presents a prompt to us, or when we create a new, empty Ruby file, Ruby doesn’t merely execute our code. Before it does, it first creates an empty anonymous Object and places us inside of it.

This empty `Object` is invisible in a sense, and it seems that those methods that we can define in this scope (space) were somehow standing alone. In fact, they aren’t. They’re defined on this empty anonymous `Object` that we usually don’t see.

This `Object` is often referred to as the top-level scope in Ruby.

The top-level scope is an empty anonymous object. All Ruby code starts here.

It can be confusing, but it comes naturally to many Ruby programmers eventually.

> **Note:** We can use some methods in Ruby without even defining an object at all. They’re already there. The `is_a?` method tells us that this already is an object, whatever this is.

This is a rather remarkable concept, so we’ll explore it in depth.

# What is the top-level object?

Whenever we open IRB (an interactive Ruby environment, more on this [later](https://www.educative.io/courses/learn-ruby-from-scratch/interactive-ruby-shell)) and it presents a prompt to us, or when we create a new, empty Ruby file, Ruby doesn’t merely execute our code. Before it does, it first creates an empty anonymous Object and places us inside of it.

This empty `Object` is invisible in a sense, and it seems that those methods that we can define in this scope (space) were somehow standing alone. In fact, they aren’t. They’re defined on this empty anonymous `Object` that we usually don’t see.

This `Object` is often referred to as the top-level scope in Ruby.

The top-level scope is an empty anonymous object. All Ruby code starts here.

It can be confusing, but it comes naturally to many Ruby programmers eventually.

Learn about the top-level object in Ruby.

The Big Picture

Variables

Built-in Class: Numeric

Built-in Class: String

Built-in Classes: TrueClass, FalseClass and NILClass

Built-in Class: Symbol

Built-in Class: Array

Built-in Class: Hash

Objects

Methods

Operators are Methods

Blocks

Get Ready for some more Drill!

Conditionals

Coding Challenge: Truthiness and Equivalence

Lets run another lap with hashes

Writing Classes

Mini project 1

Spotlight on Things Unremarked

Advanced Topics

Your Toolkit!

Appendix: Mailbox Project Prerequisite

Conclusion

Top-level Object