If you already have experience with software development and you have a comfortable work environment (i.e. OS, editor, web browser,...) then I say go for it. There are so many related protocols et.al. dumped into the interweb (HTML, XHTML, XML, blah blah blah) that if you try to bone up on all of them before you start you 1) won't start or 2) will start so far from RoR that you'll likely forget why you wanted to in the first place.
There is definitely a Unix bias here (read MacOSx and Linux in it's many flavors) that will give you a slight penalty if you're working in the MS world (there are those of us who think that's only fair...;-) I think there are two ways to approach the learning curve. The first is to go the study method: 1) Pickaxe ==> AgileWeb ==> AdvancedRailsRecipes => DeployingRailsApps I would include Obie Fernandez' TheRailsWay in this list. This is a very good path for the patient and, even if you don't follow it (the one true way) religiously, the books should be always at hand in some form for reference. 2) For the impatient, take a look at RailsSpace by Hartl and Prochazka. You can follow along the development of a fairly simple project and get a good feel for the way the big ideas (REST, MVC, DRY, buzz buzz buzzzzzz) look in code. My guess is that some combination of the two is good for just about anyone. You'll also want to get very familiar with various chat groups - this is a good one. Just monitoring the conversations will give you a good idea of what the current active issues are. One added thing is some kind of IDE or just a smart editor. I've always found that emacs is a fine tool to have around, NetBeans (by Sun) provides a fairly full IDE that runs on different platforms. NetBeans is an active area of development itself with real work being done to support RoR. Most important is have fun. Rick On Nov 1, 7:44 am, Tarek Demiati <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I’m very interested in starting with ROR, however I do not know where > to start, I’ve a background as a developer of desktop application, the > web is new to me, there seems to be a lot of things to master in order > to become an efficient ROR developer, So I’m a bit confuse on what > should I learn first : HTTP,DHTML,XML,DOM,Javascript, CSS and then > Ruby on Rails ? > > I’m aware that ROR does many of the low level dirty work for you, so > it hides the complexity from you > > So my questions are : > > 1/ Do you think someone can be a good ROR developer without mastering > the following technologies : HTTP,DHTML,XML,DOM,Javascript, CSS > > 2/ Which books would you advise me to read (ideally in chronological > order) > > 3/ Does the learning curve can be pretty steep for someone who do not > come from a web development culture (ie : Java/J2EE) > > 4/ I would also appreciate book recommendations for : > HTTP,DHTML,XML,DOM,Javascript, CSS, Ruby, Rails > > Best Regards from France, > Tarek Demiati --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
