I’m going through the book Head First Rails, and I can’t even make it
through the first chapter, because I can’t get everything working.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know what versions of Rails and Ruby
I’m supposed to be using. I’ve read that every Ruby on Rails book is
geared towards certain versions of Rails and Ruby, and if you’re using
the wrong version of something, you’re busted. Unfortunately, the Head
First Rails book doesn’t even specify what versions to use.
Why does Ruby on Rails change so much from version to version? This
wasn’t a problem with Python or other languages.
Am I even using a good book? Should I try another book instead, or
would I still face the same issues?
I’m going through the book Head First Rails, and I can’t even make it
through the first chapter, because I can’t get everything working.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know what versions of Rails and Ruby
I’m supposed to be using. I’ve read that every Ruby on Rails book is
geared towards certain versions of Rails and Ruby, and if you’re using
the wrong version of something, you’re busted. Unfortunately, the Head
First Rails book doesn’t even specify what versions to use.
Why does Ruby on Rails change so much from version to version? This
wasn’t a problem with Python or other languages.
Sure it was/is. The relatively recent upgrade from python 2.6 to python
3 required a lot of changes. Personally, I hate python 3.
Both python and ruby are in a state of major flux right now because of
major upgrades and subsequent fixes to those upgrades. Ruby upgraded
from 1.8.6 to ruby 1.9+, and ruby 1.8.7 is a bastardization of ruby
1.8.6 and ruby 1.9 that includes some of the features of ruby 1.9 added
to 1.8.6.
I’m going through the book Head First Rails, and I can’t even make it
through the first chapter, because I can’t get everything working.
Using rails requires installing a lot of stuff, and there are so many
different operating systems it is hard to get all the programs working
correctly with every system. However, if you are using one of the
common OS’s, then you should be able to get things working relatively
easily.
Am I even using a good book?
It’s three years old. Would you recommend that someone start learning
python with a book that’s three years old?
Should I try another book instead, or
would I still face the same issues?
The problems you are running into are probably due to the fact that
somewhere one of your gems/packages depends on another gem, and it tells
rubygems to go out and download the latest version of that gem. While
that may have been fine 3 years ago, that gem may have changed a lot in
the meantime, and therefore it is incompatible with other gems. The
better, more modern practice is for gems to require that their
dependencies be a certain version or range of versions. That way if the
gem gets updated, the old version, which is known to work with the other
gems, will get installed.
If you want to take a look at one of the most recent beginning rails
books, which also gets good reviews, go here:
However, be warned: the amount of stuff you have to install is
staggering. That book also teaches you testing right from the
beginning, so you might think you are reading a book about testing
rather than rails programming. But ruby is such a flexible language,
and rails is such a big framework, you need to write tests to keep code
changes from permeating errors throughout the entire structure.
Also, as far as I can tell, beginning rails books just have you copy a
bunch of code. It appears to me that rails is so complicated that
explaining everything probably doesn’t work for a beginning book. So the
teaching paradigm seems to be: authors hope you will learn some basics
and get an overview of a rails app by copying a bunch of code.
Head First books are usually much better at explaining things, but a
book that is 3 years old is on the verge of being outdated in any
computer programming language, and rails changes much more rapidly than
most. In addition, when a language/framework upgrades to a major
version change, i.e. rails 2.3 to 3.0, then all books prior to the
upgrade will instantly be dated.
I’m sure you’ll find alot more help regarding Rails issues and probably
more
resources for which books are recommended for learning Rails from a
group of
people that are there specifically to help you with Rails.
I’m going through the book Head First Rails, and I can’t even make it through
the first chapter, because I can’t get everything working.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know what versions of Rails and Ruby I’m
supposed to be using. I’ve read that every Ruby on Rails book is geared towards
certain versions of Rails and Ruby, and if you’re using the wrong version of
something, you’re busted. Unfortunately, the Head First Rails book doesn’t even
specify what versions to use.
Why does Ruby on Rails change so much from version to version? This wasn’t a
problem with Python or other languages.
Am I even using a good book? Should I try another book instead, or would I still
face the same issues?
What’s the publish date? chances are its a rails 2.x book. if that’s
the case use rails 2.3.8.
The current version of rails is 3.0 and soon to be 3.1
You really should checkout rails tutorial. It’s a much better
publication. The online version is free.
p.s: rails is such a big topic that it tends to have its own fourm/
community around it.
This is to allow things other than rails to have a chance to be
discussed. Also, some rubyist don’t particularly care for rails.
This forum is not affiliated to the Ruby language, Ruby on Rails framework, nor any Ruby applications discussed here.