First, welcome.
Regarding resources, I still recommend the seminal Rails book, Agile
Web Development with Rails: http://is.gd/bsAtb Then I'd also
recommend the Rails guides: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ and the
best place there to start, although I don't think it is linked to from
anywhere, is: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/2_3_release_notes.html
There are also a lot of useful walkthroughs, tutorials and stuff on
Peepcode: http://peepcode.com/ And if you could do with a great Ruby
tune-up then this: http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/ is a great way to do
it (and yes, the book *is* worth the extra).
Now, word of warning: you happen to have arrived during what is
probably the biggest transition Rails has had since it was released,
from Rails2 to Rails3.
Rails3 has just seen it's 3rd beta release, and with only about 60
currently outstanding bugs it could be as close as a few weeks away
from RC1.
Meanwhile, virtually all the resources available are going to be for
Rails2.3 (the current stable release is 2.3.5). There are already
some beta books out for Rails3 like http://is.gd/bsAq6 and a lot of
blogging about new features, so be aware of this, and be sure you're
looking at the right materials.
Last but not least, the full Rails API is available locally on any
machine you've installed Rails on through the ri tool, also browsable
(along with the docs of any other gems you have installed) by running
`gem server` from the command prompt and hitting http://localhost:
8808/, and also online at http://api.rubyonrails.org/ It might take a
bit of time to get used to them (none of those three are particularly
great formats) - but there's a lot of information in a very condensed
form.
I should also mention http://sdruby.org/podcast
Ok, deep breath, that was an unusually helpful mail from me. I think
my wife spiked my coffee with happy beans this morning.
Regards,
Jason
On Apr 12, 2010, at 1:27 PM, Paul L wrote:
My name is Paul and my question is:
What resources are available to learn Ruby on Rails?
Browsed books at Borders has helped and reading Head First Rails seems
like a a good introduction. It is project based and very engaging.
Practical Rails Plugins by Apress is interesting, but installing
plugins is frustrating because of SVN versus GIT.
Messing around with PHP and developing some apps in ActionScript, has
been valuable, but it's no formal degree in Computer Science.
I look forward to meeting everyone at the next meeting =)
Paul
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