Breaking this thread out because the last one was somewhat emotionally
charged.
Some points:
- Please do not confuse language documentation with framework
documentation.
To say that PHP documentation is better that Rails documentation is
comparing apples to oranges - Please do not assume that Rails documentation should encompass all of
Ruby
and all of Rails. When you are looking for information on topics like
instance_variable_get or instance_variable_set, consider that it might
be
Ruby and not Rails that defines the function
Some recommendations:
- Find blogs by people you respect on various subjects and bookmark them
- Find resources for overall API documentation and bookmark them
- Find a list of cheat sheets and bookmark them
- Read the Rails mailing list and a clear picture will begin to emerge
- Please do not assume that some collection of documents will provide a
set
of magic recipes whereby you can instantly be an expert Rails developer.
You’ll need to work on a complete skill set from OS and server
configuration
to Ruby to Rails - Take advantage of the great books out there. No, they’re not silver
bullets, but they collect a great deal of wisdom into a relatively small
number of pages. And… by all means, get the PDF versions when
available so
you can quickly find any specific item
I think it’s a safe statement that nobody who posts on this list was
born an
expert at developing Rails applications. Over the months and/or years
(for
the Rails graybeards), people have acquired these skills. It’s also a
safe
statement that no matter how good documentation is, there will be holes
in
it somewhere. The question is how big are the holes and what are you
willing
to do about it?
Here are a few resources I rely on:
The Wiki: http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails
Gotapi for general API info: http://gotapi.com/
Rails Manual for more up-to-date info than Gotapi:
http://railsmanual.org/
Rubydoc for Ruby questions: http://www.ruby-doc.org/
Pickaxe for more Ruby: http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/pickaxe/
Why’s Poignant Guide for more Ruby: http://poignantguide.net/ruby/
Rails Weenie for cool q&a and tips: http://rails.techno-weenie.net/
Rails Forum for good give and take discussion: http://railsforum.com/
BDD Documentation: http://rspec.rubyforge.org/documentation/index.html
Luke R. for great writing about BDD (also look at :
http://www.lukeredpath.co.uk/2006/8/29/developing-a-rails-model-using-bdd-and-rspec-part-1
Dave A. for BDD philosophy and fundamentals:
http://blog.daveastels.com/
View this message in context:
http://www.nabble.com/Rails-Documentation-Resources-tf2590986.html#a7225547
Sent from the RubyOnRails Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.