Rails, Oral Tradition, and Getting Started

Just occurred to me in the aftermath of last night’s post that capturing some thoughts about the process of getting started with Ruby on Rails. Just a quick sketch as I’m pressed for time, but here it is:

1. Read and Learn

• Buy “ Agile Web Development with Rails” (by Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, et al) from Pragmatic Programmers and do the whole tutorial.

• Buy “ Programming Ruby” (by from Pragmatic Programmers and read at least the “Facets of Ruby” section

• Buy “ Rails Recipes” (by Chad Fowler) from Pragmatic Programmers (sensing a theme?) as a great way to see known patterns mapped into Rails

• Download and read “ Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby” if only because it’s not only informative but beautiful and a delightful departure from the traditional programming language guide.

Also, Huw Collingbourne has some other book recommendations. As an aside, I like PragProg books because you can get them as as PDFs (though only if you buy direct from them). It’s nice to be able to haul around my entire reference library without breaking my back.

2. Get Connected

• Join your local Ruby or Rails meetup.

• Attend any Ruby or Rails conferences within easy reach and budget.

• Find a mentor, someone you can IM with wonky questions

• Hang out in #rubyonrails @ irc.freenode.net

• Join the Ruby Talk group on Google Groups (note: this is just an echo of the ruby-talk mailing list)

3. Read and Learn, Redux

• Get the code for any open-source Rails project and fix two bugs.

• Join the rails-core google group and make a vague attempt to keep up with what they’re talking about.

• Start reading good Rails blogs ( Peter Szinek took a novel approach: let Technorati and Alexa tell you which ones are good)

That’s all for now.