daeltar's

How to start with Rails

Lots of my friends are starting with Ruby on Rails development and all of them have similar questions. They often have previous PHP experience. This post is about directions and sources which helped me. You may also read my previous article about setting Mac for RoR development.

1) Ruby

You can learn Ruby (the language) as you go by learning primary Rails, it worked for me.

• Version: Use Ruby 1.8.7 for smoothest ride (for both RoR 2.3 and 3 as of mid 2010)
• Book: Programming Ruby 1.9
• Legendary Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby – online book
• Ruby for Rails – book recommended by Vojto
• Standard Library Documentation

2) Rails

• Version: Go with Rails 3.
• Book: Agile Web Development with Rails, 4th Edition
• Guides: Rails guides – great, great, great learning source
• API doc: Rails API documentation
• Test driven development: If you are not used to writing tests for your code it is best to change that quickly.
• Railscasts – free screencasts (about 10 min each)
• PeepCode – paid screencasts (about 1h each)
• Ruby Toolbox – use existing plugins/gems before developing something on your own (like paperclip for image uploads)

3) Git and GitHub

Install git and get familiar with it.

• Book: Pro Git – free html book
• Screeencasts: GitCasts
• GitHub: Grab account, you will use GitHub a lot. Almost all Rails related code is hosted there (including plugins, gems and RoR itself).

4) Asking questions

• Stackoverflow – browse rails and ruby tags
• RailsForum

5) Czech sources

• RoR fórum – czech discussion board
• CSRUG – facebook group for czech RoR users
• #rubyonrails.cz – IRC channel

Bonus sources

• RubyFlow – community links
• Planet – rails related blog aggregator
• RubyShow – podcast with Dan Benjamin and Jason Seifer

Now go and develop some great Rails application. Remember, it is not about tools (Rails in this case), but about what you can do with them.