Ask HN: Is Ruby on Rails for beginners? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is Ruby on Rails for beginners?

6 pointsgamechangr15 comments

Ruby seems easy, but learning more about these takes time. MVC, REST, Migrations, Database abstraction, Routing,

Is this a good language for beginners?

"MVC, REST, Migrations, Database abstraction, Routing"

None of these things have to do with Rails or Ruby.

Regardless of which language/framework you choose to learn, you'll still find yourself tackling the above concepts in some form.

If you like Ruby and Rails, learn it. There is no "right" choice. What you choose to learn depends on what you want to do with your skills.

Also, taking the above into account, be aware that what language you start with isn't all that important. In the beginning, you'll likely lack the skills to really understand what the differences mean anyhow. The important thing is that you start somewhere and learn.

Don't follow the "flavor of the month" people. There will always be some hot new language or framework to play with.

Pick something that has a knowledgeable and active community for support and you'll do fine with whatever you choose.

"knowledgeable and active communities"...such as??? Sorry, I'm a beginner. I would assume RoR and Python...any other suggestions?

Yes, both Ruby and Python have active communities and are very popular languages for beginners.

I can't really give you any further suggestions without knowing what you plan to develop. If you're having trouble deciding what to learn, I would suggest doing a bit of research into the specific area(s) of development that interest you and get an idea of what everyone else is using.

Don't fuss about it too much though. If given a choice, just choose one that feels good to you and move on with learning it.

Beginning last year I was in the same about you appear to be in. I can say, with a lot of confidence, I disagree with the previous comment. BECAUSE Ruby is such an articulate language it was fairly easy for me to pick up, with no formal CS classes in over 15 years. Might I suggest IF you have 1 year and 4hrs a day do the following:

1. Spend three months just in Ruby. I recommend LRTHW (Shaw) and LTP (Pine)

2. Code School 1 & 2.

3. Hartl (will hurt your head in a good way)

4. Repeat Step 1

5. Make apps, learn a few front-end frameworks (bootstrap, zurb-foundation) along the way.

6. Hit the IRC.

I do have the time and am considering Code Academy in Chicago, but after more investigation I have began to wonder if RoR is really for beginners..because it borrows so much from others.

I had planned to take a year and learn it full-time starting in March, but I am having second thoughts.

thanks for the post

I think one of the strengths of Ruby and thus RoR is its kind of simple. Although I will admit the leap to 3.1 was probably more difficult than it ought to have been. I can only speak for NYC but joining the local meetup community has done wonders for my skill building. But remember, this is a ten year process =) Good luck!

I'd say that Rails is bad for non-programmers to learn programming on. Start with something that has far less magic baked in, like Sinatra; Rails will do a great job of doing things for you, without necessarily letting you learn what's going on. It's awesome for experienced programmers who are tired of doing the same drudge work for the four thousandth time, though.

Ruby is a great language, though, and is fine for beginners. Sinatra is a very straightforward and gentle way to do some web programming with Ruby.

There is a very important element of fun in hacking on a cool platform that does awesome stuff behind the scenes.Ultimately thats why we make such frameworks so that its fun to build on top of them.In my opinion deriving fun from what you do is essential to become an expert.

It seems ilke you are countering the previous point...Are you implying that I should stay with Rails vs Sinatra?

Yeah I think you should stay with Rails initially.

Not any more. The time to be a "Rails beginner" was in 2005 / 2006. I'd jump on Node.js if you want to be in on the ground floor.

Funny...that is exactly what I have been considering. Thanks for the lead.

The Sinatra Book is free too. http://sinatra-book.gittr.com/

Someone told me that Sinatra sets the ground work for Rails.

From my little interaction, it appears that they are very separate (sinatra less complexed).

Is Sinatra a building block or just a simple first step???

I'd also suggest Sinatra if you want to stick with Ruby.

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