Ask HN: Recommend a great book on Ruby on Rails for a Beginner | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Recommend a great book on Ruby on Rails for a Beginner

2 pointsMarlonPro3 comments

I have a great desire to learn building stuff with ruby on Rails. Let's just say I am a beginner although I have built (and currently building) simple GUI apps with C# on .Net (WinForm). I remained a newbie with C#. I want to revive my quest for programming.

I was searching the net for info about good book to start with.

Would you recommend any book for beginning Ruby on Rails?

I was about to purchase "Agile Web Development with Rails" by Pragmatic Programmers from Amazon but I was discouraged by the many negative reviews.

Any similar book recommendation to get me up to speed with ruby on Rails?

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@Aqua_Geek & @tfitzgerald yes, I already have that in my Chrome's bookmark. I also bookmarked the following:

BOOKS + Why's (Poignant) Guide To Ruby (http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/)

+ Learn To Program (http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/)

+ The Book Of Ruby by Sapphire Steel Software (http://www.sapphiresteel.com/The-Book-Of-Ruby)

+ The Bastards Book of Ruby (http://ruby.bastardsbook.com/toc/)

BLOG TIPS ON RUBY

+ I'm basically following tips listed here: "5 Resources to Get Started with Ruby on Rails" (http://quickleft.com/blog/5-resources-to-get-started-with-ru...) And,

+ "Best way to learn Ruby & Rails" (http://astonj.com/tech/best-way-to-learn-ruby-rails/)

WEBCASTS/VIDEOS

+ I'll be watching "Rails for Zombies" (http://railsforzombies.org/)

+ Screencasts at rubyonrails.org

And on the side, I am also re-reading "OOP Demystified" to get a better grasp on OOP.

Is there any other particular book that is a must-book for a beginner? Or my list on top pretty much covered all a beginner should know about getting up to speed with Ruby on Rails?

I would highly recommend Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl (http://ruby.railstutorial.org). It's free to browse online or $26 for the PDF. There are also screencasts, if you're into that.

The tutorial does a great job of introducing the various pieces of the Rails framework and how to get started.

Hartl's Ruby On Rails 3 Tutorial book is great, and available for free online: http://ruby.railstutorial.org/

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