[LRUG] Learning ROR

Thu Nov 9 07:09:48 PST 2006

Hi!

As I've said lots of times already I'm now in the process of learning ruby
as well so I'll relate my experience.
First time (approximately one year ago) I tried to go the shiny way, just
going directly to RubyOnRails, with the scaffoldings, and all that shiny and
bouncing web2.0 stuff. It's cool but I reached a point in which I didn't
understand the syntax of some examples - because I hadn't a decent knowledge
of ruby itself so I wasn't able to progress anymore.

Then I went for the Poignant's Guide. It's cool and entertaining but in my
case it didn't serve me as a real-real basis, too much dialectic and comic
strips for people like me trying to quickly get an understanding of ruby and
be able of escaping from php as soon as possible.

So I've just started with the Pick Axe - best option ever! The introduction,
specially in the 2nd edition, is nice and clean, goes straight to the point
with very good examples. Now I understand funky things such as the magic
"yield", blocks, iterators (best idea ever since the tea was invented!), etc
(just let me advance a bit more and I'll enumerate for you all the chapters
and what I liked more of each of the ruby features!).

When I get a bit more of practise with ruby I'll probably re-start again
with the Pragmatic's Programmers guide to Rails (i think it was Agile web
development with Rails or something like that), which is the first book I
started with but got a bit lost when wanting to do something advanced as I
told you :)

The "Rails Recipes" book was also nice but only when you know rails, and for
specific cases.

Obviously this is web focused because that's my main concern and way of
earning £££, but I intend to introduce ruby in as much of my coding as
possible. Specifically, I want to experiment with ruby and opengl which is
something which looks interesting as well... and looks suitable for a
project I have in mind.

Hope this helps!

Sole

On 11/9/06, Paul Lynch <paul at plsys.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> On 9 Nov 2006, at 12:34, Harjeet Taggar wrote:
>
> > I just had a quick question regarding RoR and I thought this would be
> > the best place to ask it.  I've only recently starting teaching
> > myself programming (I run a website and decided it was time to stop
> > relying on other people to do all of the coding) and have started
> > with PHP since that's what my site is built in.  However I've been
> > advised to stop learning PHP and go straight into RoR as I'll be
> > building applications far quicker.
> >
> > I was wondering what people thought about this.  In terms of my
> > business, the site is PHP but I have enough developers at the moment
> > so there is no urgent need for me to learn PHP in that respect.
> > We've also been thinking seriously about converting over to RoR
> > anyway and I though perhaps setting myself the goal of rewriting the
> > site in Ruby could be a good way to learn and it'd be a cool
> > challenge.
>
> There are lots of reasons why Rails is a better tool to develop web
> apps, and remarkably few reasons why it isn't.  Or, to put it another
> way, in your position I'd switch from PHP to Rails in an instant.
> One of those reasons is that Rails is much easier for an
> inexperienced programmer to create simple sites in than PHP.
>
> > Finally - as someone who is pretty new to programming but tends to
> > pick things up pretty quick, what is the best way to approach
> > programming and are there specifically any particularly good ways to
> > learn Ruby?
>
> First point: Rails isn't the only web development tool for Ruby;
> there are several others, although it is almost certainly the best
> choice for developing CRUD style web apps.  Second point: don't let
> yourself get stuck on scaffolds, most developers will be producing
> sites much more complex than a scaffold site, with very little extra
> effort.  Last quick point: it helps a lot if you have a decent grasp
> of Ruby before approaching Rails, although it is by no means essential.
>
> For an inexperienced programmer, you should look at Chris Pine's
> Learning to Program book, which you can buy as paper or as a PDF.
> See his site to start with, which gives an early version online:
> http://pine.fm.  There are several other beginning sources on the
> web: Why's Poignant Guide (http://www.poignantguide.net/ruby/),
> http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/, http://
> www.humblelittlerubybook.com/, http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~barryp/
> ruby-tut.html, and others.  You might also want to take a look at
> http://tryruby.hobix.com/, for an on-line Ruby sandbox with tutorial.
>
> Once you get the basic idea, you need a copy of the pickaxe book.
> This is Programming Ruby - there is an online version of the first
> edition at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/, although
> you really need the current edition.
>
> That's for Ruby.  For Rails, take a look at: Top 12 Ruby on
> RailsTutorials (http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/1816/top-
> ruby-on-rails-tutorials).  Once you've seen the 15 minute
> screencasts, move up to Four Days on Rails (http://
> rails.homelinux.org/).  You will need a copy of Agile Web Development
> with Rails, second edition - which is in beta at the moment.  Go to
> http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/rails/ for a pdf copy.
>
> You will also want a copy of David Black's Ruby for Rails.  There are
> other books and resources, but these are the most important ones; I
> assume that you already know the home sites for Ruby and for Rails,
> and how to install them.
>
> As to the best way to learn, there isn't a great difference from
> learning anything else: study a little, and practice a lot.  Look at
> good examples, try making some programs, and communicate with others
> doing the same.
>
> Paul
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