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Comment by lquist | Hacker News Reader

I find the Rails tutorial to be a terrible intro to Rails (unless if you're already a web dev, or a crack dev), but a fantastic intro to TDD with Rails. I recommend JumpStartLabs' Blogger tutorial as the best intro to Rails.

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I have tentative plans at some point to make a product called something like Learn Enough Rails To Be Dangerous to fill this niche. The plan would be to cover just the basics of Rails, while largely omitting TDD. Leaving out TDD would definitely be easier on a beginner—but it would also undoubtedly make him dangerous.

I have tentative plans at some point to make a product called something like Learn Enough Rails To Be Dangerous to fill this niche. The plan would be to cover just the basics of Rails, while largely omitting TDD.

Awesome! I look forward to it!

Leaving out TDD would definitely be easier on a beginner—but it would also undoubtedly make him dangerous.

I would think the opposite actually: learning TDD often gives people a false sense of safety.

It's a great holistic intro to Rails, but you won't finish it in an evening.

I think Rails For Zombies is great for 'instant gratification' in the same way as the old 5 Minute Blog Tutorial used to.

Thanks! A link, for the lazy: http://tutorials.jumpstartlab.com/projects/blogger.html

Railstutorial is an awesome awesome intro. I learned Rails with it and had negligible coding experience.

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