Rails book wanted for non Ruby programmer

Ruby
1

Hi,

I am very interested to see what Rails is all about, and am looking for
a
good book that covers Rails well and possible has a reference for it
too. I
do not know Ruby but am familular with Javascript and PHP.

Is there a good book for me ? I may also get a book on Ruby if really
recomended too.

Many thanks in advance,

Aaron

2

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, Aaron G. wrote:

Hi,

I am very interested to see what Rails is all about, and am looking for a
good book that covers Rails well and possible has a reference for it too. I
do not know Ruby but am familular with Javascript and PHP.

Searching www.amazon.co.uk for “rails php” (without the quotation
marks) turns up two books on rails for PHP users. I’ve not used
them so can’t comment. Other online bookshops could be worth a look,
too.

    HTH
    Hugh
3

“Hugh S.” [email protected] wrote in message
news:[email protected]…

marks) turns up two books on rails for PHP users. I’ve not used
them so can’t comment. Other online bookshops could be worth a look,
too.

Yeah, I really would prefer a) a book that is not tainted by PHP
references
(should have said) b) is recomended by a reader.

Thanks,

Aaron

4

Aaron G. wrote:

Aaron

This is probably a bad idea. Rails is written in Ruby. Rails uses many
features of the Ruby language. Rails cannot be used effectively without
knowing Ruby. Ruby is not just a scripting language used to control
what’s going in, if you view it that way you’re going to get yourself
into trouble.

I’d recommend picking up a book on Ruby and learning the language
independent of Rails first. You don’t have to master it, just be sure
you know all the features and can write programs fairly well. Then move
on to Rails.

5

What programming experience do you have?

Thanks,
Dan

6

2008/11/7 Aaron G. [email protected]:

Yeah, I really would prefer a) a book that is not tainted by PHP references
(should have said) b) is recomended by a reader.

I started off with the Pragmatic Programmers “Agile Web D.
with Rails”. It goes through the building of a sample application and
has a pretty good reference section in it too. (I’ve not tried any
other rails starter books so can’t offer any comparisons)

Although I do agree with Michael in that learning ruby is a good idea
first, if you have good programming experience and aren’t wanting to
build a complex site to start off with then you can get away with not
worrying too much about learning ruby first. However, your code is
not likely to be particularly great - it’s likely to be more like php
written in a ruby syntax rather than nicely honed ruby. If you’re not
too concerned about this and happy to learn to improve your ruby as
you go along then I’d say dive in. But to understand what the
framework is doing or to write decent code for your app then learning
ruby itself is essential. Be prepared to have to do a major re-write
of any site you’ve developed pre-learning-ruby once you’ve started to
understand it better.

I (and I imagine many others) started by playing with rails, then fell
in love with ruby, then started on the path towards ruby
enlightenment.

Hope this helps

Rupert

7

“Ruby for Rails” is horribly outdated and perhaps not the best approach
to
the problem. He is working on a new book though.

8

David Black’s “Ruby for Rails” is a good way for people developing
Rails apps to get a better understanding of Ruby the language.

Mike

–
Mike S. [email protected]
http://www.stok.ca/~mike/
The “‘Stok’ disclaimers” apply.

9

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 2:31 AM, John G. [email protected]
wrote:

Aaron G. wrote:

Is there a good book for me ? I may also get a book on Ruby if really
recomended too.

Along with Rupert I also recommend The Pragmatic Programmers Agile Web
Development with Rails, but watch your editions. The Third edition, not
yet published, is for Rails 2.0*. As far as I know, this will be the
first Rails 2.0 book available.

SitePoint’s Simply Rails 2 is available and it uses Rails 2. It is the
book
I’m using to learn RoR.

10

Aaron G. wrote:

Is there a good book for me ? I may also get a book on Ruby if really
recomended too.

Along with Rupert I also recommend The Pragmatic Programmers Agile Web
Development with Rails, but watch your editions. The Third edition, not
yet published, is for Rails 2.0*. As far as I know, this will be the
first Rails 2.0 book available.
This book gives you enough Ruby to make Rails work, and if you already
have some Java and PHP and access to Google you should do fine.

*I got a PDF of the beta release when I pre-purchased the book from the
Pragmatic website http://www.pragprog.com.