Learning Ruby on Rails is a long journey. Due to the Ruby on Rails motto, conventions over configuration, you need to learn about a lot of hidden stuff.
I still remember the first time I had to work on a Ruby on Rails application. I didn’t even know Ruby at that time. That was a disaster. After fighting my way through the code I figured out how to do what I was supposed to do. But I didn’t understand how I did it. I didn’t get how all the pieces fitted together.
I didn’t understand what was Ruby on Rails and how it worked exactly. Fast forward a few years and a hell lot of lines written, I’m quite confident with my Ruby code. Enough to write a book about the subject. What I want to share with you today is the list of best resources to learn Ruby on Rails. I didn’t know about those great books and platforms when I started but I wished I’d known them.
The resources I’m going to present you can take you from knowing nothing about programming to knowing everything about Ruby on Rails. That’s a huge step! What you are currently doing doesn’t matter. You could be a Python developer or a professional wrestler. Whatevs. By using the platforms I’m gonna show you, you can become an expert in Ruby on Rails. But hold on a minute. I’m not saying it will be easy. You will need to be dedicated as learning a programming language is not the easiest thing in the world. Lucky us, it’s not the hardest either!
The best way to become an expert is to experiment and create your own applications.
Railscasts - Free or $9 subscription
Railscasts is a great website containing over 400 screencasts about Ruby on Rails and its ecosystem. You can access a lot of the videos for free but to access all of them you will need a subscription. Don’t worry, it’s only $9 a month! The screencasts are really great and Ryan Bates, the author, is a dedicated Rubyist who has published numerous gems as you can see on his Github account.
Unfortunately, Railscasts has not been updated for more than a year. Ryan apparently burned out producing so much high quality content. Let’s hope he is well and enjoying life and coding. If you’re looking for an alternative, you can check the RubyTapas screencasts!
Treehouse - $25 with 2 weeks Free Trial
Videos are a great medium to learn if you ask me. By following a set of videos you can learn so much! Why? Because you can see how a Ruby on Rails expert codes and how his coding environment looks like. How he do it, how he think about a problem… Well that’s exactly what Treehouse is offering you. A cheap and simple way to make you an expert programmer wherever you’re coming from! And what’s best than a video to show you a websites that’s going to teach you coding through videos?
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEYQiMCWRW4[/embed]
Treehouse is a great platform that have helped people quit their job and start a career as a developer! That’s how powerful it is.
The Rails Tutorial - Free
The Rails Tutorial is another great resource to learn everything about Ruby on Rails. The most awesome part is that it’s available here for free! If you’re ready to invest a bit of money, you can also buy the book for offline reading. There are also more pricey options that come with a set of amazing screencasts.
In The Rails Tutorial, you will learn how to build a complete Ruby on Rails application. Everything is covered: hosting, authentication, authorization, database… Basically, everything you need to know ;)
Learn more about the Rails Tutorial.
Books
Books are a great way to learn Ruby on Rails. Maybe not the best as it’s missing the interactivity and live action that you find in screen casts and videos.
Check the books I recommend to read to learn Ruby on Rails.
GitHub - Free
Finally, a good way to learn how to code… is to read code! You will need to know the basics but reading the code of Ruby on Rails itself or of well written gems will teach you a lot about the Ruby coding style. You just have to absorb this knowledge and implement it in your own code.
Now you’re ready to learn Ruby on Rails! It will be a challenging and fun journey ;)
