# Suggestions for a non tech guy to teach himself Ruby on Rails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 23, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168 "2010-01-23T20:39:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/1 "2010-01-23T20:39:05Z")

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Hello everyone,

I am not a tech guy by any means. I run a small web app business out  
of NH and would like to teach myself how to create my own apps with  
ruby on rails. I took a basic HTML class in college (Graduated in  
May09), but cant say I remember a whole lot. I have hired a developer  
to help me with my start up and things have been going well, but I  
would like to be able to build my own applications in my spare time. I  
have heard of people teaching themselves (I believe the creator of  
Ruby on Rails, David taught himself?) and was wondering the best ways  
to go about it? Any must have books?

I have always been a hands on guy so the goal would be to just start  
getting my hands dirty, but need some direction. Any help is much  
appreciated.

Thanks!

Colby

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/2 "2010-01-23T21:45:07Z")

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Jrdn wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> 
> I am not a tech guy by any means. I run a small web app business out  
> of NH and would like to teach myself how to create my own apps with  
> ruby on rails. I took a basic HTML class in college (Graduated in  
> May09), but cant say I remember a whole lot.

Then there’s your first step. You must learn HTML and CSS, and be able  
to hand-code standards-compliant Web pages, before you even think about  
dynamic Web application development.

> I have hired a developer  
> to help me with my start up and things have been going well, but I  
> would like to be able to build my own applications in my spare time. I  
> have heard of people teaching themselves (I believe the creator of  
> Ruby on Rails, David taught himself?) and was wondering the best ways  
> to go about it? Any must have books?

I’m completely self-taught, but I was exposed to programming concepts  
from an early age. I recommend something like Programming Ruby and/or  
Try Ruby (both on the Web). You will want to get at least a basic idea  
of how the language works before working with Rails. This would also be  
a good time to set up a version control system (I recommend Git).

When you’re ready to get started with Rails, read the Rails guides at  
[http://guides.rails.info](http://guides.rails.info) . Also learn RSpec and Cucumber: you should do  
all development test-first. At the same time, learn SQL (Rails will  
abstract it, but you still have to understand it) and read about  
database normalization.

> I have always been a hands on guy so the goal would be to just start  
> getting my hands dirty, but need some direction. Any help is much  
> appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Colby

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/3 "2010-01-23T22:51:21Z")

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In order to develop with Ruby on Rails, you’ll need to understand the  
following:

HTML, CSS, Ruby, Rails-Framework, Javascript.

Your first step, is understanding Html and Css. Css is going to be a  
big  
hurdle for you to grasp because you have to understand the concept of  
DOCTYPES and how they are used in different browsers. I would start out  
first with reading two books on html design and css design and make sure  
they are separately covered books. CSS is easy to understand but  
because of  
all of the quirks with browsers, you could find your website looking  
horrible. You also need to understand how to use css within html to  
shorten  
the use of inline styles, which can make search engines hate your site.  
Some search engines, especially google, will only read a finite amount  
of  
lines and then it stops caching the site completely.

Once you feel very solid about html and css, it’s time to move on to  
ruby.  
Without a fundamental knowledge of ruby, you’ll find it difficult to  
understand the various pieces of rails, namely its objects. Ruby is an  
object oriented language that is fun to grasp, but if you’ve never  
programmed a single piece of code in your life, you may find it  
difficult to  
understand. I find Ruby a refreshing language, compared to languages  
like  
C++ and PHP.

After you read your first ruby book, dive into a book about ajax which  
will  
help you with understanding much of the core javascript that rails  
heavily  
utilizes.

After that, find several rails books and begin creating small  
applications  
until you get a bigger comfort level. Read the mailing list/boards  
often  
for both Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and ask a lot of questions. If you  
want a  
starter thread for rails to read more, you can use mine:

[http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/191189](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/191189)

Sincerely,

Joel D.  
Website Bio: [http://jdezenzio.com/](http://jdezenzio.com/)  
Rails Production Sites: [http://ncaastatpages.com](http://ncaastatpages.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/4 "2010-01-23T23:35:33Z")

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Alpha B. wrote:

> In order to develop with Ruby on Rails, you’ll need to understand the  
> following:
> 
> HTML, CSS, Ruby, Rails-Framework, Javascript.

Not a bad order. I agree with most of your post, but I think you’ve got  
the wrong end of the stick in a couple of places.

> Your first step, is understanding Html and Css.

Yes.

> Css is going to be a  
> big  
> hurdle for you to grasp because you have to understand the concept of  
> DOCTYPES and how they are used in different browsers.

Not really. There are only a couple of doctypes that you need to know  
about.

> I would start out  
> first with reading two books on html design and css design and make sure  
> they are separately covered books.

Why?

> CSS is easy to understand but  
> because of  
> all of the quirks with browsers, you could find your website looking  
> horrible.

Yes. There are lots of good websites on the proper use of CSS.

> You also need to understand how to use css within html

Very simple: don’t.

> to  
> shorten  
> the use of inline styles, which can make search engines hate your site.

That is not why you should avoid inline styles. You should avoid inline  
styles because, quite simply, HTML is about the logical structure of a  
document. Physical style information no more belongs in HTML than  
document content belongs in CSS.

[…]

> Once you feel very solid about html and css, it’s time to move on to  
> ruby.  
> Without a fundamental knowledge of ruby, you’ll find it difficult to  
> understand the various pieces of rails, namely its objects.

Yup.

> Ruby is an  
> object oriented language that is fun to grasp, but if you’ve never  
> programmed a single piece of code in your life, you may find it  
> difficult to  
> understand. I find Ruby a refreshing language, compared to languages  
> like  
> C++ and PHP.

I completely agree.

> After you read your first ruby book, dive into a book about ajax which  
> will  
> help you with understanding much of the core javascript that rails  
> heavily  
> utilizes.

Absolutely not! Start building conventional (non-Ajax) Web  
applications. Get comfortable with that first. Build at least one  
conventional app before you try Ajax. Otherwise, you will fall into the  
all-too-common trap of excessive reliance on JavaScript.

> After that, find several rails books and begin creating small  
> applications  
> until you get a bigger comfort level. Read the mailing list/boards  
> often  
> for both Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and ask a lot of questions. If you  
> want a  
> starter thread for rails to read more, you can use mine:
> 
> [New to Rails? Read This - Rails - Ruby-Forum](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/191189)
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Joel D.  
> Website Bio: [http://jdezenzio.com/](http://jdezenzio.com/)  
> Rails Production Sites: [http://ncaastatpages.com](http://ncaastatpages.com)

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/5 "2010-01-24T00:36:52Z")

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You were saying the same thing as I was with regards to use of inline  
styles. I just used the wrong word. I used within when I meant with.  
I avoid inline styles like the plague. The only time I use inline  
styles is when I’m forced to with mailers and html content types. But,  
that’s a different subject.

The reason why I mentioned a non-combination book with html/css and not  
going for that approach is just by preference. I’ve read a lot of html  
and css books and combination books. There’s very few out there that  
really get into the developer mindset. Learning css can be difficult,  
especially if you don’t understand browsers. Here’s an example  
question…

Would you consider IE to be the least standard CSS 2.1 browser?

I bet it would surprise many to find out that it’s actually the only  
browser that is fully 2.1 compliant with IE8. The only reason why  
people still have trouble with IE8 is because of compatibility modes  
which automatically forces the browser to behave as if it’s IE7. And,  
then there’s the possibility of throwing a browser into quirks mode.

Sure, you can use sites like this:

[http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/](http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)

… which automatically checks and validates your css and can even remove  
duplicated css code and even clean it up.

… and you can use this:

> **[The W3C Markup Validation Service](https://validator.w3.org/)**
>
> W3C's easy-to-use
> markup validation service, based on SGML and XML parsers.

… which will validate your html by doctype

The problem with most combination books is that they are outdated for  
css. Find a good css 2.1 book and learn about css. Don’t mix it all  
together. However, you need to understand html before you can  
understand css. That’s my opinion on the matter.

By the way, one of my favorite IE8 codebits is this one here:

This one line tells IE8 that your site does not require any  
compatibility modes and makes IE8 not use compatibility mode for pages  
that have this, regardless if the user has compatibility mode set.

I haven’t even gone into detail about 16% of the world still using IE6  
which was done in a poll 6 months ago. I bet the 16% are probably all  
developers like us too just testing out our own sites.

As for javascript, ajax is a great book on its own. I know how you feel  
about non-conventional sites Marnen but the fact is most major sites use  
ajax, rails uses ajax, and it’s something everyone who designs with  
rails needs to understand. It’s really a no-brainer that you would  
learn how to design sites without ajax because that’s what you are doing  
when you are first discovering html. It’s progression. By the time you  
get to ajax, you will already know how to design non-conventional sites.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/d9b06d/32.png) [@Jrdn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jrdn)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/suggestions-for-a-non-tech-guy-to-teach-himself-ruby-on-rails/182168/6 "2010-01-24T01:05:48Z")

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Alpha B. wrote:  
[…]

> As for javascript, ajax is a great book on its own. I know how you feel  
> about non-conventional sites Marnen

No, apparently you don’t. I love Ajax in its proper context. I’ve  
developed complex Ajax applications. I’d love to do so again. But I  
simply do not believe that it is at all appropriate for a Web developer  
to learn to use Ajax before understanding what can be done without it.

Ajax is a very useful advanced technique. It is not for beginning Web  
developers.

> but the fact is most major sites use  
> ajax,

Most major sites don’t have beginner developers.

> rails uses ajax,

No. Rails includes canned Ajax helpers. If I were doing an Ajax  
application in Rails, I would not use these helpers, because they commit  
the cardinal sin of using inline JS. I understand that this will be  
fixed in Rails 3, but till then I hand-code all my JavaScript, and I  
avoid Rails’ JS helpers like the piece of garbage they are.

> and it’s something everyone who designs with  
> rails needs to understand.

Not until they can handle non-Ajax development. That comes first. The  
fact that Rails contains Ajax helpers is a red herring: Rails contains  
lots of things that beginners needn’t bother with.

> It’s really a no-brainer that you would  
> learn how to design sites without ajax because that’s what you are doing  
> when you are first discovering html. It’s progression.

I agree, but you seemed to be advocating something different.

> By the time you  
> get to ajax, you will already know how to design non-conventional sites.

You would hope. But I’ve seen too much unnecessary and poor-quality JS  
to believe that everyone realizes this.

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid