Reading materials

[Concours]

I've recently been turned on to Ruby and Rails, and after some
preliminary searching, I've settled on two sources to help get things
started.

1) Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Open
Source)
2) Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

I believe book #2 is referred to as the "pickaxe" in the Rails
community? Have I made a good choice on materials, or are there some
other books I should be looking into?

As a brief background, I've been developing websites and web
applications for the past 8 years (primarily in the ASP environment). I
have a good grasp on OO programming, but haven’t really gotten any one
particular language under my belt.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[darren kirby]

quoth the Concours:

I've recently been turned on to Ruby and Rails, and after some
preliminary searching, I've settled on two sources to help get things
started.

1) Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Open
Source)
2) Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

I believe book #2 is referred to as the "pickaxe" in the Rails
community? Have I made a good choice on materials, or are there some
other books I should be looking into?

The 'pickaxe book' is "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide" by
the same publisher. It focuses on core Ruby, rather than Rails.

I do recommend it, and in fact it is the only Ruby book I have (but I have not
used Rails, nor do I intend to).

-d

 

[Bill Guindon]

I've recently been turned on to Ruby and Rails, and after some
preliminary searching, I've settled on two sources to help get things
started.

1) Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice in Open
Source)
2) Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

I believe book #2 is referred to as the "pickaxe" in the Rails
community? Have I made a good choice on materials, or are there some
other books I should be looking into?

As a brief background, I've been developing websites and web
applications for the past 8 years (primarily in the ASP environment). I
have a good grasp on OO programming, but haven't really gotten any one
particular language under my belt.

Thanks for any advice!

Some others to consider:

Ruby for Rails
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932394699/bookstorenow600-20

Rails Recipes
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_rr/

Ruby Cookbook
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rubyckbk/

And there are more listed here:
http://wiki.rubygarden.org/Ruby/page/show/RubyBookList

 

[Rick DeNatale]

So, if you want to get to know Ruby, get the PickAxe book (a.k.a.
'Programming Ruby') and if you want you get into Rails, get 'Agile Web
Development with Rails' as starters.

And make sure that you get the second edition of each.

 

[John Joyce]

I think you chose a good book for learning Ruby. And THE book for
learning Rails. I've got both books.
But you need the actually pickaxe book, Programming Ruby, as a
reference manual. It is not the best tutorial for beginners. It's
fine for the programmer experienced with another language or 2, but
it does make an excellent place to look things up when you have
questions.

If you're a super beginner, check out Learn to Program, by Mr. Pine.
It's a gentle introduction.
If you're interested in a wild ride, check out Why's Poignant Guide .

The Ruby Cook Book is also interesting to have around. It's only
weakness is that it covers Rails while there is also a Rails
cookbook. It should have gotten on some of the topics covered in the
Perl, Python, and PHP cookbooks.