How I Got Started Learning Ruby on Rails
Feb 20 2009As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the]8 video (I use a Mac). I’m very happy with them. I’ve also heard great things about the Rest screencast (now in version 2, I’ve seen version 1 and liked it). I plan on getting the Git and RSpec videos as well.
If you don’t want to spend money, check out Railscasts. These are done by the same people from peepcode and offer shorter videos on specific topics. Well worth it. (For those .NET people, think of Dimecasts).
The Hardware/Software Setup
I use a MacBook Pro. It’s pretty easy to get setup with Rails on a Mac. Google for the how-to. For an editor, I use Textmate and love it. (Especially after watching the Peepcode screencast). I played around with [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the]8 video (I use a Mac). I’m very happy with them. I’ve also heard great things about the Rest screencast (now in version 2, I’ve seen version 1 and liked it). I plan on getting the Git and RSpec videos as well.
If you don’t want to spend money, check out Railscasts. These are done by the same people from peepcode and offer shorter videos on specific topics. Well worth it. (For those .NET people, think of Dimecasts).
The Hardware/Software Setup
I use a MacBook Pro. It’s pretty easy to get setup with Rails on a Mac. Google for the how-to. For an editor, I use Textmate and love it. (Especially after watching the Peepcode screencast). I played around with]13 and NetBeans, but stopped using them both. It’s not worth it if you’re just starting out- these two programs are good IDE’s, but they wrap a lot of functionality that I’m finding is just easier to do on the command line. Get comfortable with the simple first and add what you feel you’re missing. On Windows, I’ve played around with e Text Editor and found it pretty nice.
IDE’s are very important. As a .NET developer, I love Visual Studio. It’s awesome- I love the intellisense, resharper, the immediate window, debugging, tfs integration, I’m spoiled. You can pry code completion from my cold, dead hands. I wanted that in Rails IDE. But don’t try finding Visual Studio for Rails- Rails doesn’t need Visual Studio, and it will just get in the way. Everything you need to do can be done in a simple text editor and the terminal window. When you feel like you’re lacking something, there’s an easy way to do it. Different is okay.
Other Stuff
This is random:
- Ruby in 15 minutes is a great site for learning Ruby.
- Learn and understand Git.
- You seriously haven’t checked out [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the]8 video (I use a Mac). I’m very happy with them. I’ve also heard great things about the Rest screencast (now in version 2, I’ve seen version 1 and liked it). I plan on getting the Git and RSpec videos as well.
If you don’t want to spend money, check out Railscasts. These are done by the same people from peepcode and offer shorter videos on specific topics. Well worth it. (For those .NET people, think of Dimecasts).
The Hardware/Software Setup
I use a MacBook Pro. It’s pretty easy to get setup with Rails on a Mac. Google for the how-to. For an editor, I use Textmate and love it. (Especially after watching the Peepcode screencast). I played around with [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The [As I wrote recently in a previous post, I’ve been playing around with Rails. I wanted to touch on how I got up and running learning and digging into Rails.
Learning Ruby on Rails
The Web:
Ruby on Rails Guides is the best place to learn Rails. People looking to get started should definitely start here. The guides are broken down into various topics, and are extremely well written with good coverage. You’ll get exactly what you need, even if you’re an experienced programmer.
Books:
I bought Simply Rails 2 and almost immediately returned it. It’s geared towards someone who has no programming experience whatsover. It has minimal depth, if any. Don’t buy this book.
I then bought The Rails Way which I did not return, and now use as a reference. It’s a pretty big book with a decent amount of whitespace. However, I like this book because it’s not a how-to book. It’s also not really for learning Rails, but by explaining what Rails does and why. It has a good format- with snippets from contributors highlighting certain points (think of the comments in Framework Design Guidelines). To be honest, you can get what you need from the Rails guides, but if you like books, get The Rails Way.
I also found some PDF’s of Rails Recipes and Advanced Rails Recipes which I found useful. However, Rails changes pretty frequently, so a lot of books get outdated pretty quickly. Rails Guides is simply your best bet.
Peepcode and Railscasts:
I’m usually not a fan of screencasts, but I bought a 5 pack from Peepcode and am glad I did. I wish I bought the unlimited. Peepcode offers very well done videos about various topics on Rails. There are also some pdf e-books you can download. So far I’ve bought The]7 e-book which is worth the $9, and the]8 video (I use a Mac). I’m very happy with them. I’ve also heard great things about the Rest screencast (now in version 2, I’ve seen version 1 and liked it). I plan on getting the Git and RSpec videos as well.
If you don’t want to spend money, check out Railscasts. These are done by the same people from peepcode and offer shorter videos on specific topics. Well worth it. (For those .NET people, think of Dimecasts).
The Hardware/Software Setup
I use a MacBook Pro. It’s pretty easy to get setup with Rails on a Mac. Google for the how-to. For an editor, I use Textmate and love it. (Especially after watching the Peepcode screencast). I played around with]13 and NetBeans, but stopped using them both. It’s not worth it if you’re just starting out- these two programs are good IDE’s, but they wrap a lot of functionality that I’m finding is just easier to do on the command line. Get comfortable with the simple first and add what you feel you’re missing. On Windows, I’ve played around with e Text Editor and found it pretty nice.
IDE’s are very important. As a .NET developer, I love Visual Studio. It’s awesome- I love the intellisense, resharper, the immediate window, debugging, tfs integration, I’m spoiled. You can pry code completion from my cold, dead hands. I wanted that in Rails IDE. But don’t try finding Visual Studio for Rails- Rails doesn’t need Visual Studio, and it will just get in the way. Everything you need to do can be done in a simple text editor and the terminal window. When you feel like you’re lacking something, there’s an easy way to do it. Different is okay.
Other Stuff
This is random:
- Ruby in 15 minutes is a great site for learning Ruby.
- Learn and understand Git.
- You seriously haven’t checked out]2 yet?
- I spent too much time searching the Internet learning rails and not enough time programming Rails. Get to it!