Ask HN: I want to learn Ruby
Hi HN,
I want to learn Ruby, and after I gain some experience or find it interesting, I want to do Rails. What's the best way to learn Ruby? Kindly suggest some good books or manuals.
I want to learn Ruby, and after I gain some experience or find it interesting, I want to do Rails. What's the best way to learn Ruby? Kindly suggest some good books or manuals.
The official Rails guides are rough but a good resource. http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
I wouldn't bother with the official Rails book.
1. Learn to Program by Chris Pine
2. Everyday Scripting with Ruby by Brian Marick
3. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
An excellent book to build your skills and internalize the common Ruby idioms is The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton.
As others have mentioned, Agile Web Development with Rails is The Book to use for learning Rails.
Of the above, the only book I don't have in one form or another is Chris Pine's (because it is, frankly, well below my skill level). There's an online tutorial by the same name, by the same guy, that can perhaps serve as a substitute -- but the book is much more complete, so if that's suitable to your skill level, I recommend getting the book.
Best o' luck! Ruby is a lot of fun.
Now I come from a background of doing TDD in java, so your milage my vary, but this was a very natural and easy approach to learning the language.