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Ask HN: I want to learn to program (in Ruby). How can I get to "doing", easily?
I want to learn to program (in Ruby). But with near-unlimited information, resources, etc., I've found it pretty overwhelming/difficult to find a good place to start.
To get started, I'd rather do than read. I'd rather someone tell me, in as much detail as possible: "do this this and this to get your environment up and running." (I'm on OSX 10.5.)
Then, I'd prefer if someone would just give me a bunch of "cool code" (meaning code with practical applications -- i.e. something i can use/experience right away, perhaps a very simple blog) to write and run (with specific directions as to how to do both), so that I'm able to experience it first hand.
And then I'd like the concepts to be explained to me (e.g. what variables, strings, classes, instances, objects, etc., are), after I've experienced/interacted with/done it.
I guess I wish learning to code was like learning to throw a frisbee, or ride a bike.
Perhaps it is, but that hasn't been my experience...
I'd happily (and eagerly) pay someone to make the initial process and core concepts of learning to code (mainly for web-development) a much more user-friendly experience...
- spooneybarger 16y agoHow about hackety-hack.com?
- dougireton 16y agoTry http://rubykoans.com/ http://rubykoans.com/ or for Rails, try Railstutorial.org
- sleight42 16y agoI've mentored several people who have wanted to learn Ruby. I universally start them with installing RVM (http://rvm.beginrescueend.com http://rvm.beginrescueend.com) and then the Ruby Koans.
- davepm 16y agolynda.com is pretty good. some ppl rate the "pickaxe" book (google it) other than that, read code, try stuff, experiment.
- niketdesai 16y agoI just completed the ruby koans (as dougireton has suggested) and it was a great introductory course. I highly recommend that as a start. It's quite basic but you get a good grasp of key topics.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- alanl 16y agoFor rails check out Michael Hartls tutorials by example railstutorial.org, it contains an ebook and videos. Only took me a couple of weeks to get through it and I can highly recommend it. I think it costs about $100.
- dnautics 16y agoit would probably help a huge deal if you set yourself concrete goals. I was a perler and I learned ruby because I needed to process and chunk huge amounts of genomic data for my new job (yes I realize there are python tools to do this but being a perler ruby seemed like a better choice) so I wound up using it as an excuse to write all new scripts to do those jobs. In the process I learned ruby.
- joshbert 16y agoYou have to check this place out. It has been incredibly useful for a lot of people, myself included: http://railsforzombies.org/ http://railsforzombies.org/ Good luck!
- nerf 16y agoI just came across http://tryruby.org http://tryruby.org and it seems pretty useful.
- anthonycerra 16y agoFor a while I used the freely available HTML book at Railstutorial.org, but I recently bought the screencast + pdf bundle. The quality of the material is top notch. Paying for stuff will make you feel guilty if you don't use it. As a bonus, you get to support the people that make great stuff. Some other sites to check out are: www.railscasts.com (Free) www.pragprog.com (not free) www.peepcode.com (the rails screencasts here were 'meh' and not free)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- runjake 16y agoI'm actually glad to see this question come up again & again, because the Ruby world is so fast-paced. I found the following useful: - tryruby.org (actually _why's precursor) - Hartl's railstutorial.org - Pragmatic Programmers Programming Ruby book - Peepcode.com videos (great for getting started very quickly on CRUD apps I saw that nobody's mentioned the previous HN Asks about learning Ruby, so I've compiled some of them here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1623619 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1623619 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1984323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1984323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1544100 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1544100 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841951 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=841951 You can find more at: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+learn+ruby http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+l... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676271 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676271 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877668 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877668