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I have no affiliation with the author, but I'd recommend this book to pretty much anyone trying to learn Rails, I own the second edition. Before this book I'd

I have no affiliation with the author, but I'd recommend this book to pretty much anyone trying to learn Rails, I own the second edition. Before this book I'd never done any real web programming. My background is in compilers and trading systems/machine learning( those two are essentially one in the same), all C++ desktop software. The book got me up and running, better than any of the online rails tutorials, and there are a lot of rails tutorials online. One thing I really appreciated was that it didn't just build an app, it actually took you through the steps of deploying on Heroku and using git. A Lot of other books and tutorials seem to assume you want to build an app and run it as localhost for the rest of its life. The other nice touch was the chapter that teaches a Rails flavoured Ruby. As someone who had used Ruby for scripting, but never for Rails, I thought this was a nice touch.

mhartl 12y ago
Thanks!
cmaxwe 12y ago
I also have the second edition and can't praise it enough. I have a computer science degree but never really applied it to actual development as I am a business analyst in my professional life. This book bridged the gap and I quickly became proficient enough in Rails to develop a side project.
freditup 12y ago
Second all of this, thanks for the wonderful book. I can truthfully say it was a major positive factor in advancing my career in software development, and for that I'm quite grateful! So thank you for the book and all the hard work and effort that goes into writing and maintaining it.
rubiquity 12y ago
I actually recommend strongly against this book. It teaches things new people to Rails, let alone people new to programming, don't need to be messing with so early on. I'm mainly talking about the use of RSpec and some of the outdated Rails idioms. For myself and a few people I've mentored, Agile Web Development with Rails[0] has yielded much better results. If they follow that up with Eloquent Ruby[1] they will be golden and well ahead of their peers with similar experience. This book single-handedly breeds the "I'm a Rails Programmer!" that write terribly awful Ruby code that we all know and hate. I don't mean to discredit Michael's hard work. Writing and maintaining a book like this is a huge achievement that I'm probably not capable of. I also appreciate that his book is at least bringing people into the Rails ecosystem. I just can't recommend it over others. 0 - https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-rails-4 https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-... 1 - http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Series/dp/0321584104 http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio...
- adi-pradhan 12y ago
  yeah i wasn't too fond of the use of non-omakase stuff but i believe that is now resolved "100% default stack. The 3rd edition of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial uses the default Rails choices for all relevant technologies, thereby substantially reducing the configuration necessary to get started. The excellent but syntactically heavy RSpec testing framework has been replaced with the default Rails testing stack (MiniTest), making for a much gentler introduction to testing than in previous editions."
  - rubiquity 12y ago
    This is good to hear. I'm glad to see RSpec removed. A better example site than a microblog would be an even better step in the right direction. Learning to program via building social website clones needs to stop. I've called out all the Developer Bootcamps that do that kind of teaching, too.

mhartl 12y ago

Thanks!

cmaxwe 12y ago

I also have the second edition and can't praise it enough. I have a computer science degree but never really applied it to actual development as I am a business analyst in my professional life. This book bridged the gap and I quickly became proficient enough in Rails to develop a side project.

freditup 12y ago

Second all of this, thanks for the wonderful book. I can truthfully say it was a major positive factor in advancing my career in software development, and for that I'm quite grateful! So thank you for the book and all the hard work and effort that goes into writing and maintaining it.

rubiquity 12y ago

I actually recommend strongly against this book. It teaches things new people to Rails, let alone people new to programming, don't need to be messing with so early on. I'm mainly talking about the use of RSpec and some of the outdated Rails idioms. For myself and a few people I've mentored, Agile Web Development with Rails[0] has yielded much better results. If they follow that up with Eloquent Ruby[1] they will be golden and well ahead of their peers with similar experience. This book single-handedly breeds the "I'm a Rails Programmer!" that write terribly awful Ruby code that we all know and hate. I don't mean to discredit Michael's hard work. Writing and maintaining a book like this is a huge achievement that I'm probably not capable of. I also appreciate that his book is at least bringing people into the Rails ecosystem. I just can't recommend it over others. 0 - https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-rails-4 https://pragprog.com/book/rails4/agile-web-development-with-... 1 - http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Series/dp/0321584104 http://www.amazon.com/Eloquent-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professio...

adi-pradhan 12y ago
yeah i wasn't too fond of the use of non-omakase stuff but i believe that is now resolved "100% default stack. The 3rd edition of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial uses the default Rails choices for all relevant technologies, thereby substantially reducing the configuration necessary to get started. The excellent but syntactically heavy RSpec testing framework has been replaced with the default Rails testing stack (MiniTest), making for a much gentler introduction to testing than in previous editions."
- rubiquity 12y ago
  This is good to hear. I'm glad to see RSpec removed. A better example site than a microblog would be an even better step in the right direction. Learning to program via building social website clones needs to stop. I've called out all the Developer Bootcamps that do that kind of teaching, too.