Some time ago I decided to dive into Ruby on Rails and learn Ruby. Ruby is a great language but the only problem is that there are not a lot of books or articles around for learning the language. Since it is somewhat tough to learn, although it really isn’t, it seems that the people in the Ruby community are quite intelligent, which makes for a better learning experience.
Everybody knows that Rails is a Ruby framework for web applications and wants to learn it. A lot of books say that they are geared towards beginners with no Ruby experience. I have picked up several Rails books and although I have not completed them, I feel that I have a strong base to suggest books to people that want to learn Ruby on Rails.
The titles of some of the Rails books are quite deceiving. Agile Web Development With Rails is a great book for somebody with some Ruby experience. Although it is geared to a first timer, it jumps right into developing a Rails application and spends little time teaching a base a Ruby. I picked this book up as a complete Ruby beginner and although I have not fully completed the book, I feel this is a great resource. The author Dave Thomas goes through the process of creating an online shop. The code is very easy to follow along to and Thomas makes sure that each addition of code, will not only benifit the application but will also allow the reader to learn why and how the lines of code were used. This book is for somebody that wants to create Rails applications but does not necessarily want to program in just Ruby, although creating a Rails application is programming Ruby. This book is about $30.
I recently came across another Rails book called Ruby for Rails: Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers. This is a fantastic book for somebody that knows zero Ruby. The book begins teaching the Ruby language it’s self. After only a few pages of learning Ruby you are then taught the basics of creating a functioning Rails application. Rather then teaching new Ruby syntax in the creation of the Rails Application, the author David Black stops and teaching several more lessons on Ruby and implements those teaching in the Rails application. This book is geared toward somebody who not only wants to program in Ruby but also create Rails applications. I highly recommend this book to anybody wanting to dive into Rails without a Ruby background. This book is about $35.