Interested in learning Ruby on Rails, but unsure where to start?
This will be the first in a series of posts on how to learn rails. What I hope makes this series different from other resources on the web is that I will make specific recommendations based on your preferred learning style.
Like to Jump Right In?
Build an app in 30-60 minutes or so to see how fast you can get something going. Start with the “Guide to Install Rails” and then complete “Build Your First App“. I was amazed at how well done the Rails Girls tutorials are and at how quickly they can get you to the point of having created a real, working application.
Once you have built the application, I recommend waiting to follow the other Rails Girls guides. Although they are excellent and hopefully your interest in Rails is piqued, now is a good time to check out the deeper learning track for the fundamentals that will make learning Rails even easier.
Deeper Learning Track
Whether you jumped right in or decided to start here (not a bad choice if you like to dig in and learn the fundamentals before taking on a new framework), this track will help you get the basic building blocks out of the way and your future Rails learning will go much more smoothly.
Rails includes more than just a framework for making web sites or applications. A major component of Rails is database related. Before your eyes glaze over, let’s tackle the web and Ruby side first and then jump into the database part.
Maker Square has a super handy check list that you can work through (they call it Immersive Prework). You will cover the command line, using git (version control), html, css, Ruby, and Javascript. Some of the material they link you to is on Codecademy which is an awesome resource for learning to program! The Maker Square track sets a really nice foundation to build upon.
If you are totally new to programming and prefer a book, Chris Pine has his original book, Learn to Program, available online. Other good Ruby learning resources include Learn Ruby The Hard Way and Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby.
So now we have covered Ruby, html, css, and using Git for version control, how about some Rails?
In my opinion, this is the single best introduction to Rails because he starts from the database perspective and gently introduces the Ruby behind Rails and then digs right into Rails itself.
If you have completed the Maker Square Immersive Prework track mentioned above, you should be ready to tackle this course, no problem. You will learn about databases and how they are related to Rails (your eyes won’t glaze over, I promise!). You will build stuff in Ruby first before using Rails so you have a better idea about what is happening behind the scenes.
After the sections on Ruby and Databases, you will work with views and controllers and other Rails components and hopefully end up with a much better understanding of how everything fits together in a Rails application.
University Continuing Education Option
For now I am limited to mentioning one program, as I only have experience with the University of Washington’s Ruby Programming Certificate which I am 2/3 of the way through. So far, it has been excellent, we first did an introduction to Ruby section and then wrapped up a section on Rails. Now we are starting our Advanced Topics in Ruby and Rails and I expect it to be awesome too!
What’s Next?
Next post I will introduce more resources and information about where to go from here. For now, I highly recommend going back to the Rails Girls guides and working through the other guides, push your application to GitHub, deploy your application using Heroku (there are other options too), use bootstrap etc.
Stay tuned, I have a lot more coming up in the next post!
kodywilson 