Hi Josh, if you would like to learn the Rails framework, I would highly recommend the following two books and read them in the given order:
a) "Programming Ruby" by Dave Thomas et al Note: Please read and understand Chapters 1 - 9 before going to (b)
b) "Agile Web Development with Rails 2ed" by Dave Thomas et al Note: Please read and understand the entire book.
Good luck,
-Conrad
In my opinion, Ruby for Rails is the best rails book. Way to few rails developers know ruby well enough to do powerfull stuff - the real power in rails lies in ruby.
I gotta second the imperative for learning Ruby. Rails is Ruby. Ruby isn’t [just] Rails but Rails most certainly is Ruby. The better grasp you have on Ruby’s wondrous bag of tricks the better you’ll be able to command Rails’ own special brand of magic.
RSL
Both Ruby for Rails and the new AWDwR 2nd ed are outstanding books. In my humble opinion
augustlilleaas@gmail.com wrote:
In my opinion, Ruby for Rails is the best rails book. Way to few rails developers know ruby well enough to do powerfull stuff - the real power in rails lies in ruby.
It is an excellent book, and in my opinion better than pickaxe for learning Ruby with or without Rails, but for learning Rails you need Agile, otherwise you miss out on things like migrations and tests. Agile also covers the Rails material in more depth. Ideally, you have both, they complement each other superbly.
I say this from the perspective of someone who is currently using both books to come up to speed on Rails (and who is discovering that he really didn't know Ruby half as well as he thought he did :-))