# Is it worth learning ruby? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 7, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084 "2006-04-07T02:59:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/1 "2006-04-07T02:59:44Z")
Hi all, Does it make sense to learn Ruby if one doesn’t know html? Or would you recommend to learn html as a base? I’m so impressed with the Ruby on Rails demos I saw… I’d love to be able to develop such apps ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/2 "2006-04-07T03:09:04Z")
I just bought the Learn to Program by Chris P… I’m only a few chapters into it and its been fun so far! I’m not a programmer but so far, so good. Also, your going to need HTML background for anything you do on the web. TJ ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/3 "2006-04-07T03:15:05Z")
You should probably learn some Ruby outside of rails to get started. Rails requires some understanding of databases, the MVC design pattern and Ruby (obviously), besides HTML. You can learn Rails and HTML together assuming you have some programming background. I’d recommend the Head First HTML/CSS book, it’s really clear and will take you pretty far, and would strongly recommend Agile Programming with Rails. ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/4 "2006-04-07T03:17:38Z")
altar an wrote: > Hi all, > Does it make sense to learn Ruby if one doesn’t know html? > Or would you recommend to learn html as a base? > I’m so impressed with the Ruby on Rails demos I saw… I’d love to be > able to develop such apps They are completely different things, each one very useful but not necessary together. HTML is a markup language, which means it just controls the structure of web pages. If you’re going to be working on the web, with Ruby on Rails or any other web language, knowing HTML is essential. Also learn CSS, Cascading Style Sheets, which is the presentation language controlling the way HTML documents _look_ on the web. Ruby is a programming language, which is much different. It’s a great language, so if you want to program, then certainly Ruby is an excellent choice. If you’re going to be using Ruby on Rails, then knowing Ruby is also essential and you should learn Ruby before beginning with Rails. In short, if you’re using Ruby on Rails, then yes, it’s essential to know Ruby, Rails, HTML and CSS. If you just want to write programs, then Rails, HTML and CSS aren’t essential. Jeff C.man ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/5 "2006-04-07T03:15:14Z")
you only need know html basic skills, no more. altar an escribió: ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/6 "2006-04-07T03:38:27Z")
Thanks for all the good advice. So I’d better learn html, css and then Ruby ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 6:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/7 "2006-04-07T06:09:18Z")
I disagree. Anyone who is going to write web applications in _any_ language should take the time to learn (x)html and css properly and thoroughly. This includes a lot of xml stuff too like entities, document types, etc. It is truly sad how little respect there is in the world for lowly html. b ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/8 "2006-04-07T03:21:06Z")
altar an wrote: > Hi all, > Does it make sense to learn Ruby if one doesn’t know html? > Or would you recommend to learn html as a base? > I’m so impressed with the Ruby on Rails demos I saw… I’d love to be > able to develop such apps If you are interested in web apps, then just dive right in. You can’t learn the server side of cgi unless you have the client side to interact with and you’ll get bored real fast if you only learn html. Try not to think of them as seperate entities. You’ll definately need to learn them both. ---
**Author:** ![furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/67e7ee/32.png) [@furious](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/furious)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-it-worth-learning-ruby/57084/9 "2006-04-10T21:25:52Z")
You don’t need to learn any of them first. Though if you are already a programmer and you don’t know html and css you will find it frustrating (well I did, I spend the majority of my time trying to get styles right) What you need is a project, an itch to scratch, something your NEED to get done. If you have that you’ll work out the rest.