Forum: Ruby on Rails New in town

Hi all,

I'm just stepping into the what seems the wonderful world of Ruby/Rails 
and
was just looking for some recommendations for reading materials, 
resources
etc.

I am currently watching the Ruby Essential Training and Ruby on Rails 3
Essential Training over at lynda.com which so far seem pretty good for
getting me started.

So if anyone can recommend good books, resource sites, personal blogs 
with
good tutorials or anything they think I might find useful while starting
out, I'd be eternally great-full.

I do have several years web development experience so I'm not a total a
total newcomer just never used Ruby before.

Thanks,

Richard

This posting offers some options that you might find useful:
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/br...

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Richard McKenna
<richarddmckenna@gmail.com> wrote:
> So if anyone can recommend good books, resource sites, personal blogs with
> good tutorials or anything they think I might find useful while starting
> out, I'd be eternally great-full.

This is a great resource
http://ruby.railstutorial.org/

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

On Oct 5, 2012, at 8:33 AM, Richard McKenna wrote:

> Thanks guys, much appreciated.
>

I haven't tried them myself, but I've seen anecdotal evidence that the 
Lynda tutorials are using really old versions of Rails. Might be a good 
idea to go through railstutorial.org with an eye to "un-learning" any 
bad habits you might have picked up at Lynda.

Walter

Online there is:

http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
http://railscasts.com/ (but many not free, but worth it)
https://peepcode.com/ (not free, but worth it)

Most of what you run into you'll be able to google but note that things
changed significantly from Rails 2 to 3 (and a lot between 3 and 3.1), 
and
changes between Ruby 1.8 and 1.9. Even though that is less of a pain 
than
it used to be, it will probably trip you up here and there. Lots of 
stuff
on blogs and that will bring up API documentation also. When looking for 
a
gem google something you are looking for and github in same query, or 
look
in rubygems.org (search) sometimes.

This talk from Dave Thomas was great, even though several years old 
(large
file):
http://scotland-on-rails.s3.amazonaws.com/2A04_Dav...

If you have the luxury of quiet periodically in your car or wherever, 
check
out the podcast at: http://ruby5.envylabs.com/

Also check out the hot stuff in GitHub:
https://github.com/languages/Ruby

Keep a listen on the core Rails list:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!foru...
and ruby etc on ruby forum: http://www.ruby-forum.com/
and stackoverflow, which is the best place to get questions answered.

While there are good choices on the book side of things, be careful; 
things
get outdated quickly. And like I said, be aware that people are still 
using
various older versions of Rails or Ruby, some may be using JRuby, etc.

Whatever you do, have fun!

Yes, and that will be the same for railscasts, peepcode, and everything
else. Things change quickly. But agree- I used to work somewhere that 
had
access to Lynda and when I checked it their stuff was older, but like
anything, maybe they have new content by the time you read this.

Yeah the Ruby Essential training is 1.8.6 and Ruby on Rails Essential
training is 1.9.2 and 3.0.0. I've already been caught out by the changes 
to
migrations but didn't really cause any problems after reading the rails
guide on migrations.

I'll be taking a look at all the suggestions tonight, I'm actually quite
excited about starting with a new language.

Are there any personal blogs for well known members of the community 
that
are worth a look.

I'm coming from a ColdFusion background and enjoy reading blogs like
Raymond Camden's and Ben Nadal's where they regularly posts how too's 
and
ask Ray/Ben type things.

Thanks, Richard

A lot of people tweet and G+, etc. now but unless you are into that here
are a few:

Rails:
http://www.rubyinside.com/
http://jonathanleighton.com/articles/
http://yehudakatz.com/ (now mostly Ember and not much on the blog 
recently)
http://tenderlovemaking.com/
http://broadcastingadam.com/
http://rubyonrails.org/core

JRuby, etc.:
http://blog.headius.com/

The best thing though in the beginning is to just code though. It will 
make
more sense that way. I usually only catch up on blogs when I'm searching
for something. Hacker News is my biggest time sink:
http://news.ycombinator.com/
http://news.ycombinator.com/newest

You up for remote pair programming?

I am working on an open source Rails project 
(RideShare<https://github.com/thelabtech/rs/tree/develop>)
and leave an hour or so open for pairing.

No pressure. Just an option.