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In all honesty, I would forget about Rails unless you have a really, _really_ compelling reason to pursue it. Rails is such a big framework, you could easily sp

In all honesty, I would forget about Rails unless you have a really, _really_ compelling reason to pursue it. Rails is such a big framework, you could easily spend as much time learning it (Rails) as you would learning Ruby itself. I would recommend starting with Sinatra and Padrino for Ruby based web frameworks, you'll likely find you never need anything more unless you get a job at a Rails shop. In terms of Ruby itself, having picked it up myself only fairly recently I would recommend the following: - unless you plan on maintaining someone elses code, jump straight into Ruby 1.9. - hang out in the IRC channels, #ruby-lang and #sinatra on Freenode. The community is awesome and really helpful. - the Sinatra video from Peepcode is really good - for books, I would recommend "Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby" (ISBN 978-1849511063), "Beginning Ruby from Novice to Professional, 2nd Ed" (ISBN 978-1430223634) and of course the current version of the Pickaxe book (google it :) - check out thechangelog.com regularly if you don't already That's about it, good luck with it - I've found it fun so far and am currently developing my first web app on top of Sinatra which i hope to launch in a month or so!

mtkd 16y ago
Personally, if you want to learn something - jump in and learn it - do what interests you. I started with Rails first (someone sent me a PDF of an early Rails manual - I started skimming it about 8am, finished the entire book of 300+ pages by supper - not sure I even ate anything in-between). After playing with Rails for a few months I started to look at Ruby itself - it's an awesome language.
- sradnidge 16y ago
  Absolutely - i guess I was more just saying think about the reasons first. When I started I was set on Rails too, purely because that's the thing most people talk about and for newbies it's easy to just see it as "the done thing" if you know what I mean, and not look for alternatives. I got onto Sinatra when I quickly realised Rails was way too heavy for what i wanted to do. But you're absolutely right, the best way to learn anything is to just jump in, and absolutely nothing wrong with Rails!
  - frankdenbow 16y ago
    I have had the same path that you describe. Started learning Rails and quickly realizing that Sinatra handles most of my needs, and is faster to get started with. It is also helpful to separate my ruby learning with understanding the rails framework. Will check out those resources!
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- vermasque 16y ago
  Emphasis on doing what interests you. I wanted to learn Rails because there's plenty of work opportunities for it, Ruby is neat, and is built around a *nix and OSS. Do what you like. I started learning web dev with Rails recently and am very close to deploying a small but significant project. Here's my two cents on how to learn: 0. Pick something you want to build. Solve a problem that nags you or someone else. Or reimplement something as you think it should be. Hack to learn. 1. If you're new to web dev, go to wikipedia to at least figure out how all the parts fit together (JS/CSS/HTML on client side, web servers, etc.). You should be able to at least diagram what does what. 2. For JS, CSS, and HTML, w3schools is a great place to start. Read all of the stuff on there for those three things (JQuery, HTML5, CSS3, etc. can be put off for a short time). It's relatively light and concise so it can be read entirely up front. Write yourself some pages to test what you read. Styling can be fun! 3. Unlike the previous reading topics, I would NOT suggest reading a massive book or all the Rails guides up front. I get bored on long reading stretches and question the effectiveness of the time spent; I'm sure this is common. I prefer to do a little reading to get me started, build something until I need to figure out a missing piece, read to fill in the puzzle, and repeat. You'll make mistakes along the way, but you'll learn actively. You'll slowly pick up the fundamentals of Ruby without having to read an entire language primer. You can and should improve your skill over time by supplementing it with more comprehensive resources. However, that's for another day after you have something minimal running. If you know an overview of Rails, you can at least outline an architecture of your app to be built. Then you figure out how to implement the parts of that architecture using Rails by selectively reading small parts of a variety of sources. For me, I used snippets of the Rails guides, Hartl's book, Stack Overflow, the Rails API docs, and a variety of blog posts. I bought one of the Peepcode screencasts but didn't see the great benefit that is suggested by their user comments. Start easy and work towards the hard stuff. At least you'll have a string of small accomplishments for encouragement to go further. On the other hand, I ended up reading 70% of the dev guide for Android to build my first app. It's in a world of its own so you have to do the long reading haul.
kaerast 16y ago
The Sinatra videos from screencasts.org are also really good and they're free. I'd been considering subscribing to Peepcode, but with screencasts.org and railscasts.com I'm now not convinced I need to.
- evilduck 16y ago
  I'd also suggest asciicasts.com, they're transcriptions of railscasts episodes, and I find they compliment the videos extremely well. I also like Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen, it's a great way to learn how Ruby really works, written in a more approachable style than the Pickaxe.
telemachos 16y ago
I can't thank you enough for mentioning Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby. It looks like a great Sinatra-based alternative to Michael Hartl's Rails tutorial. I need to scan Packt titles more often.
- stephth 16y ago
  The table of contents is impressive. Looks like a good pick even for moderately experienced developers, interested in taking Sinatra to the next level. Has anyone built working apps using this guide?
ahmicro 16y ago
This is the first time i see this amazing book "Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby", a must read and chance to know more about Sinatra.Thanks

mtkd 16y ago

Personally, if you want to learn something - jump in and learn it - do what interests you. I started with Rails first (someone sent me a PDF of an early Rails manual - I started skimming it about 8am, finished the entire book of 300+ pages by supper - not sure I even ate anything in-between). After playing with Rails for a few months I started to look at Ruby itself - it's an awesome language.

sradnidge 16y ago
Absolutely - i guess I was more just saying think about the reasons first. When I started I was set on Rails too, purely because that's the thing most people talk about and for newbies it's easy to just see it as "the done thing" if you know what I mean, and not look for alternatives. I got onto Sinatra when I quickly realised Rails was way too heavy for what i wanted to do. But you're absolutely right, the best way to learn anything is to just jump in, and absolutely nothing wrong with Rails!
- frankdenbow 16y ago
  I have had the same path that you describe. Started learning Rails and quickly realizing that Sinatra handles most of my needs, and is faster to get started with. It is also helpful to separate my ruby learning with understanding the rails framework. Will check out those resources!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
vermasque 16y ago
Emphasis on doing what interests you. I wanted to learn Rails because there's plenty of work opportunities for it, Ruby is neat, and is built around a *nix and OSS. Do what you like. I started learning web dev with Rails recently and am very close to deploying a small but significant project. Here's my two cents on how to learn: 0. Pick something you want to build. Solve a problem that nags you or someone else. Or reimplement something as you think it should be. Hack to learn. 1. If you're new to web dev, go to wikipedia to at least figure out how all the parts fit together (JS/CSS/HTML on client side, web servers, etc.). You should be able to at least diagram what does what. 2. For JS, CSS, and HTML, w3schools is a great place to start. Read all of the stuff on there for those three things (JQuery, HTML5, CSS3, etc. can be put off for a short time). It's relatively light and concise so it can be read entirely up front. Write yourself some pages to test what you read. Styling can be fun! 3. Unlike the previous reading topics, I would NOT suggest reading a massive book or all the Rails guides up front. I get bored on long reading stretches and question the effectiveness of the time spent; I'm sure this is common. I prefer to do a little reading to get me started, build something until I need to figure out a missing piece, read to fill in the puzzle, and repeat. You'll make mistakes along the way, but you'll learn actively. You'll slowly pick up the fundamentals of Ruby without having to read an entire language primer. You can and should improve your skill over time by supplementing it with more comprehensive resources. However, that's for another day after you have something minimal running. If you know an overview of Rails, you can at least outline an architecture of your app to be built. Then you figure out how to implement the parts of that architecture using Rails by selectively reading small parts of a variety of sources. For me, I used snippets of the Rails guides, Hartl's book, Stack Overflow, the Rails API docs, and a variety of blog posts. I bought one of the Peepcode screencasts but didn't see the great benefit that is suggested by their user comments. Start easy and work towards the hard stuff. At least you'll have a string of small accomplishments for encouragement to go further. On the other hand, I ended up reading 70% of the dev guide for Android to build my first app. It's in a world of its own so you have to do the long reading haul.

kaerast 16y ago

The Sinatra videos from screencasts.org are also really good and they're free. I'd been considering subscribing to Peepcode, but with screencasts.org and railscasts.com I'm now not convinced I need to.

evilduck 16y ago
I'd also suggest asciicasts.com, they're transcriptions of railscasts episodes, and I find they compliment the videos extremely well. I also like Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen, it's a great way to learn how Ruby really works, written in a more approachable style than the Pickaxe.

telemachos 16y ago

I can't thank you enough for mentioning Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby. It looks like a great Sinatra-based alternative to Michael Hartl's Rails tutorial. I need to scan Packt titles more often.

stephth 16y ago
The table of contents is impressive. Looks like a good pick even for moderately experienced developers, interested in taking Sinatra to the next level. Has anyone built working apps using this guide?

ahmicro 16y ago

This is the first time i see this amazing book "Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby", a must read and chance to know more about Sinatra.Thanks