Is the first Agile book still relevant?

Rails
1

Hi there,

I bought the first Agile RoR book a couple years ago and went through
about half of it. I now have a project where I would like to try our
RoR again. But I don’t know if my book is now out of date. I assume
Ruby has moved on since then, but not sure how much.

Can I get by using that original book? Or do I need to get it updated.
I have downloaded the free SitePoint book (waiting for the link) -
would that do as a replacement?

Thanks

Tom

2

Pixelmech wrote:

Hi there,

I bought the first Agile RoR book a couple years ago and went through
about half of it. I now have a project where I would like to try our
RoR again. But I don’t know if my book is now out of date. I assume
Ruby has moved on since then, but not sure how much.

Can I get by using that original book? Or do I need to get it updated.
I have downloaded the free SitePoint book (waiting for the link) -
would that do as a replacement?

Thanks

Tom

i bought the sitepoint book, before it was free — DOH! it is a good
beginning book.

just note that when you go to actual programming, and doing login
validation, there is lots of old stuff, like salted. then there is
sugar, and hobo, and lots of options. some good, and some ruff. just
like linux distro’s. it is hard, for newbies, to keep up with the newer
stuff or good stuff.

and when modifying your config file for email stuff, be sure to make
just ONE change, and test the server. some of it will stop the server
from loading on windows (instant rails).

when installing gems, i have had a lot of issues. you have to watch
versions of software in ROR… a lot.

3

Thanks - it looks like instant rails is no longer being developed, I
downloaded Bitnami Rubystack instead (have not installed it yet) which
seems promising. I assume gems is then no longer needed… The
SitePoint PDF is apparently damaged and undownloadable (seems many
people are responding the same thing) so I can’t grab it unfortunately

  • did you like it?

On Nov 28, 12:30 pm, Trent B. [email protected]

4

Pixelmech wrote:

Thanks

Tom

if it is the version 1 that refers to Rails 1.1.x then you should get
the next version since Rails 1.2 is quite different.

If you’re thinking of going with the upcoming Rails 2.0 then the current
version of that book is mostly relevant. Some things are (like view
template naming) will be different - but it’s mostly correct.

5

On Nov 28, 11:03 am, Andy K. [email protected] wrote:

would that do as a replacement?
template naming) will be different - but it’s mostly correct.
win32:
Rubystack is supposed to be the path of least resistance (I haven’t
tried it)

http://www.bitnami.com/tutorials/from_instantrails_to_rubystack

BTW, you probably want to figure out deployment on RH or ubuntu or
something sooner rather than later, and ubuntu makes it pretty
painless. Dozens (maybe 100s) of blogs on how to install on debian/
ubuntu (apt-get or source.)

booklists:

the recent books are getting better and more specialized. e.g. the
Apress rails projects one doesn’t cover testing because the previous
apress books did. Check Amazon for ~60 listings

6

On Nov 28, 2007 3:33 PM, Pixelmech [email protected] wrote:

Not sure what RH is, but is there a reason why I can’t just continue
using Windows XP for now?

It means RedHat.

Develop on whatever, just keep up with the deprecation warnings or
prepare to not go Rails 2.0 when it’s released.

–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/

7

On Nov 28, 2:44 pm, gene tani [email protected] wrote:

BTW, you probably want to figure out deployment on RH or ubuntu or
something sooner rather than later, and ubuntu makes it pretty
painless. Dozens (maybe 100s) of blogs on how to install on debian/
ubuntu (apt-get or source.)

Not sure what RH is, but is there a reason why I can’t just continue
using Windows XP for now?

8

On Nov 28, 1:33 pm, Pixelmech [email protected] wrote:

On Nov 28, 2:44 pm, gene tani [email protected] wrote:

BTW, you probably want to figure out deployment on RH or ubuntu or
something sooner rather than later, and ubuntu makes it pretty
painless. Dozens (maybe 100s) of blogs on how to install on debian/
ubuntu (apt-get or source.)

Not sure what RH is, but is there a reason why I can’t just continue
using Windows XP for now?

Yah, sorry, that is Red Hat. I think most people deploy on a linux
flavor like Debian, ubuntu or Red hat/Fedora. I’ve read about Solaris
and FreeBSD deploys too.

I did see somewhere a blog about developing using a Linux liveCD and
saving your changes to a filesystem on a USB drive. But doing a dual-
booting (with grub) install with the Ubuntu live CD on a Windows XP
box is pretty straightforward, check it out. The only problem i’ve
had is with getting dual monitors to work on a ATI card.

9

hi,

Develop on whatever, just keep up with the deprecation warnings or
prepare to not go Rails 2.0 when it’s released.

and why exactly would that be? I’ve been using RC 2 for several weeks on
my XP box without any problems. Out of curiosity, what’s the reason for
saying you cannot use windows for development under Rails 2.0? Maybe you
were thinking about Ruby 2.0? (i’d bet there will be a binary for
windows when ruby 2 gets released sooner or later)

regards,

javier ramírez

10

Pixelmech wrote:

one issue with developing on Win is that not all gems come in Win, and
sometimes your configuration needs to change when going to Linux

I write my code on an XP, but the code runs on a linux dev box - so I
have two machines for developing.