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Ask HN: Learning Ruby on Rails

8 points by gsmaverick 17y ago

I am wanting to learn RoR. I don't really know Ruby. I currently use PHP & Python. What sites and/or books should I read/use?

neohacks 17y ago
I liked http://www.javapassion.com/rubyonrails http://www.javapassion.com/rubyonrails
natemartin 17y ago
I recently relearned RoR after not using it for a while. I was recommended http://pragprog.com/titles/rails2/agile-web-development-with-rails http://pragprog.com/titles/rails2/agile-web-development-with... and I definitely found it to be a good book. What helped me the most was to just jump into a project and start coding. I decided to try to do a clone of twitter, just to see if I could get that working. It helped that I had a few friends who were good rails hackers that I could go to with questions.
andhapp 17y ago
IMO you should learn ruby and rails framework at the same time. The knowledge of ruby will help you gain a deeper understanding of rails inner workings like the use of method_missing, concept of self and so on. I would recommend The Ruby Programming language by David Flanagan. The Pragmatic Programmer's book Programming Ruby is quite good as well.
carbon8 17y ago
Guides: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ http://asciicasts.com/ http://asciicasts.com/ (text versions of the railscasts mentioned below) Screencasts: http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts http://railscasts.com/ http://railscasts.com/ Books: http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-... http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_arr/advanced-rails-recipes http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_arr/advanced-rails-recipes And others in the Ruby and Ruby on Rails sections at prag progammers: http://www.pragprog.com/categories http://www.pragprog.com/categories The "pickaxe book" (http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ruby/programming-ruby http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ruby/programming-ruby) is often considered the standard Ruby reference, and there is a version for 1.9. API: http://railsapi.com/ http://railsapi.com/ http://api.rubyonrails.org/ http://api.rubyonrails.org/ http://www.gotapi.com/rubyrails http://www.gotapi.com/rubyrails Conference presentations: http://www.confreaks.com/events http://www.confreaks.com/events Ruby and Rails projects are abundant on github, providing lots of example code.
tkahn6 17y ago
I would seriously recommend you pick up 'The Rails Way' by Obie Fernandez. The Rails framework and methodology/philosophy is somewhat hard to just "get into". A complete picture of what's going on - ActiveRecord, Migrations, etc - is incredibly hard to get from the "15 minute blog" screencasts. I picked up the book last night and so far it's going well.
biz2hack 17y ago
Hey! I recommend you check out #hnbeginners on irc.freenode.net ! People there would be very happy to help when you have questions!

8 points by gsmaverick 17y ago

I am wanting to learn RoR. I don't really know Ruby. I currently use PHP & Python. What sites and/or books should I read/use?

neohacks 17y ago

I liked http://www.javapassion.com/rubyonrails http://www.javapassion.com/rubyonrails

natemartin 17y ago

I recently relearned RoR after not using it for a while. I was recommended http://pragprog.com/titles/rails2/agile-web-development-with-rails http://pragprog.com/titles/rails2/agile-web-development-with... and I definitely found it to be a good book. What helped me the most was to just jump into a project and start coding. I decided to try to do a clone of twitter, just to see if I could get that working. It helped that I had a few friends who were good rails hackers that I could go to with questions.

andhapp 17y ago

IMO you should learn ruby and rails framework at the same time. The knowledge of ruby will help you gain a deeper understanding of rails inner workings like the use of method_missing, concept of self and so on. I would recommend The Ruby Programming language by David Flanagan. The Pragmatic Programmer's book Programming Ruby is quite good as well.

carbon8 17y ago

Guides: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ http://asciicasts.com/ http://asciicasts.com/ (text versions of the railscasts mentioned below) Screencasts: http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts http://railscasts.com/ http://railscasts.com/ Books: http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with-rails-third-edition http://www.pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-... http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_arr/advanced-rails-recipes http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_arr/advanced-rails-recipes And others in the Ruby and Ruby on Rails sections at prag progammers: http://www.pragprog.com/categories http://www.pragprog.com/categories The "pickaxe book" (http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ruby/programming-ruby http://www.pragprog.com/titles/ruby/programming-ruby) is often considered the standard Ruby reference, and there is a version for 1.9. API: http://railsapi.com/ http://railsapi.com/ http://api.rubyonrails.org/ http://api.rubyonrails.org/ http://www.gotapi.com/rubyrails http://www.gotapi.com/rubyrails Conference presentations: http://www.confreaks.com/events http://www.confreaks.com/events Ruby and Rails projects are abundant on github, providing lots of example code.

tkahn6 17y ago

I would seriously recommend you pick up 'The Rails Way' by Obie Fernandez. The Rails framework and methodology/philosophy is somewhat hard to just "get into". A complete picture of what's going on - ActiveRecord, Migrations, etc - is incredibly hard to get from the "15 minute blog" screencasts. I picked up the book last night and so far it's going well.

biz2hack 17y ago

Hey! I recommend you check out #hnbeginners on irc.freenode.net ! People there would be very happy to help when you have questions!