# Documentation!

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 20, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301 "2008-04-20T22:42:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rushnosh)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301/1 "2008-04-20T22:42:00Z")

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is there any guide on navigating thru ruby docs.

is there a search???

example:

if a newbie wanted to find the compare operators what would the steps  
be or is it norm to google for 2 hours to find the simplest of things.

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**Author:** ![rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rushnosh)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 10:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301/2 "2008-04-20T22:53:48Z")

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> is there any guide on navigating thru ruby docs.
> 
> is there a search???

I mostly rely on [http://www.gotapi.com/](http://www.gotapi.com/), which has a nice search  
function and includes both Rubys and Rails’ API (and HTML, and …);  
other than that I can only whole-heartedly recommend the pickaxe book  
([http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3](http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3)) as a PDF.

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**Author:** ![rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rushnosh)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 11:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301/3 "2008-04-20T23:09:05Z")

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On Apr 20, 9:53 pm, Jan-Christian F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> > is there any guide on navigating thru ruby docs.
> 
> > is there a search???
> 
> I mostly rely onhttp://www.gotapi.com/, which has a nice search  
> function and includes both Rubys and Rails’ API (and HTML, and …);  
> other than that I can only whole-heartedly recommend the pickaxe book  
> ([http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3](http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3)) as a PDF.

I would too, especially to get yourself off the ground enough to  
become self-sufficient. It’s always going to be hard to search for  
\<=\>, especially if you don’t know it exists. API documentation is fine  
once you’ve got off the ground, but by its very nature is going to be  
skimpy on the conceptual stuff.

Fred

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**Author:** ![rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@rushnosh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rushnosh)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2008, 7:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/documentation/135301/4 "2008-04-21T07:59:05Z")

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On Apr 21, 12:08 am, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> > ([http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3](http://pragprog.com/titles/ruby3)) as a PDF.
> 
> I would too, especially to get yourself off the ground enough to  
> become self-sufficient. It’s always going to be hard to search for  
> \<=\>, especially if you don’t know it exists. API documentation is fine  
> once you’ve got off the ground, but by its very nature is going to be  
> skimpy on the conceptual stuff.
> 
> Fred

Try the ri-command.  
E.g. “ri ‘\<=\>’”, “ri Fixnum#‘\<=\>’”, etc.

fastri-gem is also recommendable.

–  
A.H.